I'm going to be honest, I don't really care what reason Infold has to not communicate with us right now. nobody knows for certain whether it's because they really can't or because they won't, but it doesn't matter to our cause much.
if their hands are really tied right now? that's fine, we'll just wait patiently (and LOUDLY) for them to acknowledge us. simple.
but if they're willingly, intentionally being silent in hopes our boycott will fail and fade away after a while? OHHH BOY. shouldn't that be even more reason to keep going? to be even louder??? they REALLY think they can get away with not upholding their promise of clear communication, of going back on their statement that valko is a part of the "long term picture for lads", and then just cowardly waiting in their little offices for us to quiet down?
they can't keep hiding forever. they CANNOT.
our main goal should be to keep applying pressure, and I think that the infographic done by the lovely LenaInLinkon on twitter puts it the best.
here's the infographic for reference:
I'll personally rank it from what I think make the biggest impact. especially if you're ever feeling low on energy, these two things are something you can, and should, always do:
the MOST important one, in my opinion. DO NOT SPEND A DIME ON THIS GAME. do NOT support infold financially. from what I've seen, we've done a great job of that so far! this should be celebrated, but we need to stay consistent! whatever the next banner will be that they roll out (which many believe to be raf's 4th myth) PLEASE, do NOT spend money on it. don't support them. or else it'll send the message that their silence was a good decision, because people will quickly forget and jump onto the new shiny thing. of course, I cannot physically hinder anyone from spending on it, but I would advise against filling Infold's pockets with money right now. not after how they've treated us. it will be hard for you rafayel girlies especially if the myth rumor is true, I understand, but I still ask of you to not indulge Infold. I think the revenue outcome of whatever banner awaits us next will be the most important factor of our success and the future of this game .
DO NOT LOG INTO THE GAME. honestly, I've seen opinions differ here, too, some are saying it's fine as long as we don't spend, some are saying that we should keep the daily active user quota low. this is why I'm putting it in the second spot. personally, I think logging in is the lesser evil between this and spending, so at the end of the day it's your decision. I personally have not logged in ever since 30th June, and will keep this up for as long as I need to, even with my aurum pass and annual still running, that is a sacrifice I'm willing to take for the future of the game. I have unfortunately half-assed participating in other game boycotts before with no results, so I'm not going to half-ass it again, personally.
since these are both things that I'd call "passive boycott" (since you're not doing something, but rather restricting yourself), I think even people who are low on energy to speak up publicy can do it🙂↕️
for the off-chance that you do need a lads fix: I'd recommend staying in the community. our community has published so much fanart, and especially fanfics that might give you that lads fix without actually logging into the game. just browse tumblr, or twitter or ao3. it might not be the same as actually interacting with the game, but I still think it's an amazing alternative! or go on youtube to look at cards there, since there are many who have archived and published them for us.
if there's one thing I can take away from all of this, is that our community is AMAZING🥹🫶
should fanart / fanfiction not be enough, like I said, as long as you don't spend money on the game, logging in is the lesser evil. avoid it, if you can, but if you really cannot stay away from the game, then log in.
the other things mentioned in the infographic are more active boycott participations, so for us who still have the energy:
3. communicate directly with Infold. aka send them emails, or if you're VIP, use that like mentioned in the infographic. be polite, and be direct. maybe you have seen love and chickspace's video going around, I do recommend to watch it and take what you need from it. what I took away was how to phrase emails. in short, if you have spent money on this game, mention that!! mention the amount you've spent so far if you're comfortable, mention that you were looking forward to spend money on Valko too, but with the cancellation, you stopped spending altogether because they broke their promise to us players, which leaves you uncertain whether to believe Infold's future promises. that is the message we need to send! if infold is smart and looks at what we're saying, what the statistics are, everything points to "hey uh, we lost like a ton of money suddenly ever since we announced the cancellation of this valko dude. and emails are also saying that people have lost their trust in us to uphold our promises and refuse to spend" if infold isn't smart, well, then there's little we can do about it
4. BE LOUD ON SOCIAL MEDIA!! leave negative reviews (1-2 stars) on the app stores of your choosing, stating the reasoning behind it, that valko's cancellation is the root cause. quote retweet and comment on their posts, DO NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THE SILENCE. and if they really can't talk, we shouldn't quiet down, either. keep going like we are, talking positively about valko, keeping the hashtags trending and his name not forgotten.
sorry not sorry for the long post, lolol.
but yeah, this is the game plan in my opinion. the main game plan. I think some might feel like we aren't doing enough (or maybe I'm just projecting because I sometimes wonder this😭), since Infold is still not communicating with us, but I don't think that is necessarily true. people have already pointed out how much GOOD we have done, how much we have donated, how Valko has continuously been trending every day and it's only been like... 11 days, right? not even two weeks. but I feel like saying we have done "enough" is also not quite true, because that implies we should stop. we are doing "enough" in the sense that we just need to keep going like we are.
consistency is the key here. we need to keep going with the boycott, need to keep refusing to spend and log in, need to keep speaking up about valko. that is all we can do, at this point. keep going so they see themselves forced to acknowledge us. so they know that we are serious about this, and that we won't be brought back by whatever other shiny thing they try to distract us with.
