Love and Deepspace celebrates first anniversary and over $400m after record-breaking month

Anime dating simulator Love and Deepspace generated $446.6 million in its first year on mobile.

Infold Games, the international business arm of developer Papergames, launched Love and Deepspace globally on January 18th, 2024 and found an immediate market in the US and APAC regions like China and Japan.

According to AppMagic data, Love and Deepspace had the most lucrative first year in Infold Games’ portfolio - beating each Nikki game’s year one revenue and already surpassing Shining Nikki’s lifetime earnings.

Love and Deepspace also ended 2024 on a high note, achieving record revenue in December with an almost 500% surge in daily player spending upon its Version 3.0 update.

One strong year

The breakout star of January 2024, Love and Deepspace established its niche in the mobile games space through a combination of real-time combat, photorealistic characters, varied customisation options and dating simulation.

It has also predominantly targeted women gamers - who are in fact the larger demographic of mobile players - with a cast of male anime characters to date and interact with.

Love and Deepspace topped Japan’s download charts after launch and earned $24 million in gross player spending by the end of January 2024.

Those earnings accelerated to a further $37.9 million in February 2024, the title’s first full month on app stores, which remained its best-performing month until after the Version 2.0 update in July. That major update triggered a brief 950% increase in daily player spending, rising from $340,000 on July 14th to almost $3.6 million on the 15th, but overall this wasn’t enough to break records that month.

Instead, Love and Deepspace broke its monthly earnings record again in August 2024, generating $43.3 million.

Later still, Version 3.0’s release triggered a smaller percentage increase than Version 2.0 but earned a dramatic spending surge nonetheless, hitting new heights in daily spend on December 31st. Up nearly 500% day-over-day, player spending rose from $1.8 million on December 30th to a record $10.5 million on the 31st.

To date, this was the game’s first and only time reaching eight figures in a single day between the App Store and Google Play earnings. It also contributed to another record-breaking month, with Love and Deepspace raking in $61 million in December 2024.

Version 3.0 kickstarted anniversary celebrations early with the "Cosmic Encounters" update adding multiple events to play through and four new additions to the gacha - Xavier: Misty Silhouette, Zayne: Absolute Zeal, Rafayel: Intertidal Zone and Sylus: Night Of Secrecy.

It was followed up by "Cosmic Encounters Part Two" on January 22nd, just after the official anniversary, adding chapters 11 and 12 to the story and introducing new customisation options. The content update triggered a 347% spike in daily revenue, reaching $2.9 million on January 22nd.

Brand-new IP

Love and Deepspace ended 2024 as the year’s second most lucrative new release, only behind Nexon and Tencent’s Dungeon & Fighter Mobile. It proved that new IPs can still find a strong position in the mobile games market without leveraging any pre-established brands, beating the likes of Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket and AFK Journey.

Love and Deepspace proceeded to earn $446.6 million in lifetime earnings by its first anniversary on January 18th, 2025.

In 10 days since, that lifetime total has now surpassed $463 million.