Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Early in the morning the next day, at Shiroishi Kazuma’s secret den.
“Are there any movements today at Dream Dota League’s side?” asked Shiroishi Kazuma as he stared at the various web portals on the computer screen. “Apart from the advertisement strength as well as the benefits and perks upon opening their servers?”
“Currently, they don’t have any other advertising methods.” Qian Youjin smiled. “After all, their game category has already decided that they can’t do the same as us and hold these activities. Now they can only increase their investments for advertising.”
“Yes, the business world is like a battleground; we need to ride on our success and attack our enemy further.” Shiroishi Kazuma insipidly said, “Go and liaise with the online media. Today afternoon, after we pull their popularity down, instantly do a related live broadcast. Attack all of their various data in all aspects. For the players that watch the live broadcast, give them little pets that won’t affect the balance of the game.”
“Understood, Mr. Shi.” Qian Youjin earnestly remembered Shiroishi Kazuma’s words and then asked, “After that?”
“After that, it’s easy to handle.” Shiroishi Kazuma’s voice was very calm, but the content of his words was extremely ruthless. “Contact the Internet Water Army and lead the public opinion. Make the players think that their game is extremely bad, and only people with low intelligence would play it.”
Qian Youjin’s forehead brimmed with sweat. “I understand.”
…
Spiritual Sword, between the various clans.
“Latest news, latest news, there will be a live broadcast today at 5:00 PM to introduce their game. For the players that watch it, they will be rewarded with the cute baby rabbit! This pet is very good, and it’s out of production!”
“Really? So awesome? Then I must watch it then! It doesn’t take too much time, right? Don’t disturb me from fighting monsters and earning money!”
“It won’t take up too much time. It’s only around 10 minutes, and in the future, you still can watch the replay. Anyway, it’s fine as long as you watch it!”
“Haha. OK. By then, all our brothers will watch it together!”
…
At 2:00 PM, the open beta testing of Dream Dota League started.
Under Shiroishi Kazuma’s ceaseless attacks, the open beta testing had a pathetic level of popularity. There were only two to three servers close to being full, and the remaining six to seven servers were only about half-full.
And the maximum number of players each server supported was 20,000.
That meant that the popularity of Dream Dota League’s open beta testing was only 100,000 players or so, not even comparable to Draconic Continent’s a few years ago.
Actually, speaking of which, it was already considered not bad for the first day of the open beta testing having around 100,000 players online. But the key of the problem was that currently, the gap between Dream Dota League and Spiritual Sword was just… too big.
…
Cool Play Network, the link on the announcement on the main page—”Spiritual Sword, the peak of online gaming!”
From around 4:30 PM onwards, players started clicking on this link, and the IP visitor volume increased throughout, starting from 100,000 or so and soon reaching 200,000, 300,000, and while it was enjoying explosive popularity, it had attracted quite a lot of onlookers that joined in to watch the fun. At five o’clock, the number of players online and watching had already exceeded 600,000!
Host: “Hello everyone, this is Cool Play Network. Regarding Spiritual Sword’s great popularity, I believe that everyone already has a deep understanding of this. But exactly how great is the popularity of Spiritual Sword, I believe everyone doesn’t really have a very direct idea of it. Now, may I invite the network’s marketing department director, Mr. Huang Mingsheng, to explain about it to everyone!”
Huang Mingsheng: “Greetings, host. Greetings, dear audience.”
Host: “Director Huang, I believe that you are the most qualified to speak with regards to the big popularity of Spiritual Sword. Then, can you announce the statistical data for various aspects of the game for all the game players here, to ignite more passion in them?”
Huang Mingsheng: “OK. I believe that all the players already know how popular our game is. Now, I am going to announce a few statistical data to allow everyone to have a more direct understanding of it.”
Host: “Alright. Please go on, Director Huang.”
Huang Mingsheng: “I have here with me the exact data on how high exactly is the popularity of our Spiritual Sword. Currently, we have a total of 160 regular servers in our game. The maximum number of players that each server can support is 10,000. Moreover, after the double drop rate event started, the number of players queuing up at the various servers has already exceeded 500! What does this mean? This means that if we put all of them into the game, then the number of players online at the same time can very easily exceed 1.7 million!”
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Host: “1.7 million!”
Huang Mingsheng: “Yes. This number is perhaps not that easy to understand yet. Then now, I will compare it with another set of data.”
Host: “Please go on, Director Huang.”
Huang Mingsheng: “Previously, the most popular Draconic Continent had the highest number of 360,000 players online at the same time. And today at 2:00 PM, Dream Dota League that has just opened its beta testing today, on the other hand, only has… 100,000.”
Host: “Aiya, the gap is so wide? Looks like this Dream Dota League is really lacking compared to Spiritual Sword.”
Huang Mingsheng: “Yes, these are the aspects regarding the popularity online. As for other aspects, we are in the lead as well. On Play Together gaming forum, the number of posts of Spiritual Sword players is fifteen times more than that of Dream Dota League, and more than ten times on Tieba forum. These are sufficient to prove how outstanding our game is!”
As the saying goes, if one didn’t know how to appreciate something, it was still fine, but once a comparison was made, that would be troublesome.
If it was solely displayed by itself, the popularity of Draconic Continent would still be considered quite good. And by being able to reach 100,000 players online on the first day of its open beta testing, Dream Dota League could already be said to be successful as well. But now that they were compared with Spiritual Sword…
They obviously lost out, definitely trash—this was the most direct impression that the players present had gotten, and many players who had originally planned to wait till the double drop rate ended to go and try out Dream Dota League, upon hearing these words, immediately decided to forgo this idea.
…
Since the end of this broadcast, the battle on the internet escalated more and more.
There were topics discussing Spiritual Sword all over Weibo, and all the reports on the entire internet were about that truly shocking number of players online for Spiritual Sword—1.6 million, 1.7 million, 1.8 million, all the way to 2 million three days later!
Very soon, under Shiroishi Kazuma’s instructions, the Internet Water Army started to lead the discussions in Spiritual Sword’s Tieba forum and the various online forums. More and more people felt that Dream Dota League was a trashy game, and it was carelessly and sloppily made just because Hong Dali wanted to squander.
Many players that had played Dream Dota League were greatly in love with this game upon their first try, but whichever post spoke up for Dream Dota League would be instantly overwhelmed and drowned by the Internet Water Army.
…
At the same time, Shanghai Tianhai City, the top ten tallest building in all of Asia, the central Jinghao Building.
Jinghao Building. It was a portion of the comprehensive estate development plan of Tianhai City. This was the city center in the entire Tianhai City, and it could be said to be one of the financial central hubs in all of Asia. At the junction of Taidong road, Yincheng road and Garden road, the Tianhai Global Financial Center was adjoined at the east, and at the north side was Jinhui Building.
Jinghao Building’s overall height was 632 meters, and the height of the structure alone was 580 meters. It was combined by 118 basement levels of the main building, five levels of podium building and five levels of cellars. Its main architectural structure height was 580 meters, and its overall architectural area was 576,000 square meters. Its total weight was around 800,000 tonnes. It was the tallest skyscraper in Tianhai City and one of its icons.
In the eyes of an outsider, Jinghao Building was full of a mysterious aura. And in the eyes of the true members of the upper class, Jinghao Building had another name—Door to Heaven!
Since half a month ago, Jinghao Building had restricted access to outsiders, and all of the staff had to work there for at least 5 years before they could enter.
With the 99th floor as the center, both the upper ten floors and lower ten floors were absolutely restricted zones. Apart from the executives responsible for ensuring safety, nobody was allowed access to them. All the household appliances, whether old or new, had all to be replaced, and dead ends definitely weren’t allowed. Even the drainage system and the ventilation duct in the toilet had to be renovated. With that, there was still professional counter-investigative personnel carrying out electrical detection devices to avoid any possibility of being eavesdropped.
Because this was the main location of Heavenly State’s 24th Resource Chamber of Commerce meeting, and definitely a gathering of all the magnates!
Perhaps many would be curious about why the Resource Chamber of Commerce meeting was so important. To put it simply, this was a decisive meeting to split up all the important resources in the entire Heavenly State. Even those so-called top 500 richest people in Asia and the richest people in Heavenly State would probably not even dare to breathe deeply there.
Because those who were able to go there were the true magnates in the business world. Many little known families appeared to not have much influence, but in fact, they had an extremely huge underground network and were involved in various industries. The openly known families weren’t very special, but the true ability that was hidden in the dark was the one that couldn’t be professionally estimated.
To put it more specifically, Sangle Search Engine which was under Hong Weiguo from the Hong Family was definitely the dominant one in the aspect of Heavenly State’s internet search engines. Its current market worth had already reached 30 billion, and if it was placed on this Resource Chamber of Commerce meeting, it could more or less be ranked in the top 20. Even if the entire Hong Family was considered, it would only be able to rank in the top 10 magnates—from the bottom.
Over here, ranging from oligarchies which dealt with the financial aspect to huge businessmen dealing with arms and weapons, electrical and car industry, development of minerals, high-end machinery manufacturing, so on and so forth, the real magnates of various industries were all gathered here.
For instance, Mu Tie represented the Mu Family and Liu Yihui represented the Liu Family—over there, they were only considered ordinary and one of the top 20 figures.
As for those few in the first places, it wasn’t an overstatement to say that had it been in ancient times, they would be the governors, the kings of their lands. Apart from not being able to rebel, for everything else they would literally be able to shake the entire Heavenly State with just one stomp of their feet.
These were the members of the inner circle. In the outer circle of the Resource Chamber of Commerce, there were hundreds of companies with their own respective powers. Financial groups, large scale triads, mine owners… To put it simply, companies whose total value exceeded 2 billion had a slot in the outer circle. Only those with total value exceeding 10 billion could enter the inner circle!