Zhao Xuming was somewhat bewildered and confused.

Tenda released an e-sports promotional video?

What… did that have to do with what they were discussing?

If Tenda released a promotional video, it must be promoting GPL, but hadn’t GPL’s broadcasting rights already been sold? Continuing to boost GPL’s popularity shouldn’t affect our ICL, right?

But from Zhu Yan’s tone, why did it seem like this promotional video had a major impact on ICL as well?

Zhao Xuming was completely puzzled, unable to understand the reason for Zhu Yan’s attitude. He felt that something had gone wrong somewhere.

Zhu Yan didn’t offer much explanation, simply taking out his phone, finding Tenda’s newly released promotional video “Breaking the Cocoon Before Becoming a Butterfly,” and handing it to Zhao Xuming.

Zhao Xuming took it and pressed play.

After watching the first half, Zhao Xuming’s confusion deepened.

Isn’t this quite normal?

The content of the first half was very conventional, simply telling the story of a gaming-addicted teenager overcoming numerous obstacles to pursue a professional e-sports career. Admittedly, there were several very touching scenes, such as the father’s kneeling, highlighting the bitter pain of parenthood.

Similar stories weren’t uncommon in the e-sports circle. Many famous e-sports players had experienced similar situations in their youth. But after they succeeded and achieved good results, they had already reconciled with their families.

This was the basic formula for typical e-sports promotional videos: first describe how difficult the professional players’ lives were and how misunderstood they were, then describe how they gained fame and achievements through their own efforts after becoming professionals, living better lives, and even enabling their once-poor parents to live more affluent lives.

Zhao Xuming looked up at Zhu Yan with a puzzled expression.

His look seemed to say, isn’t this just an ordinary promotional video? It doesn’t seem to have cost much either. Compared to our ICL promotional video, it’s left in the dust by miles.

Zhu Yan simply said, “Mr. Zhao, keep watching.”

Zhao Xuming had no choice but to continue watching the latter part of the promotional video.

However, as he watched, his eyes widened, his mouth slightly opened, and the puzzled expression on his face was completely replaced by shock.

“What is this?” Zhao Xuming nearly blurted out.

The plot in the latter half of the promotional video took a dramatic downturn. Although the protagonist had fulfilled his wish to become a professional player, he couldn’t get any playing time, and after wasting several years of his youth, he had no choice but to return home and work at a construction site!

In the final scene, the protagonist watched his father’s departing figure, recalled his days at school, and regretfully wept—a scene that would make anyone sad and tearful.

Zhao Xuming was utterly speechless.

He wanted to throw the phone to the ground and shout: Are you insane?!

This wasn’t an e-sports promotional video at all—it was clearly made to smear e-sports!

An e-sports promotional video was meant for the audience and the public to see, shouldn’t it promote typical success stories? There were so many successful professional players who had changed their lives, why not promote them? Why insist on promoting those unknown, low-level cannon fodder?

The key point was, even if this was the reality, you shouldn’t say it out loud!

Yet Tenda not only said it out loud but also blatantly made a promotional video about it and loudly promoted it!

What was their intention?

If Tenda didn’t have any e-sports-related business itself and was making an AOE attack on competitors, that would be understandable. The problem was that Tenda had its own GPL league with a bunch of professional players under it. Wasn’t this promotional video smearing itself as well?

Wait, that’s not right.

Zhao Xuming suddenly realized that Mr. Pei was definitely not someone who would make such a basic mistake. Since Mr. Pei released this promotional video, he must have fully calculated the follow-up actions!

He quickly clicked to check the comments section of the video.

One look, and his heart instantly sank!

“This video made me so sad, reminds me of when I used to hang out at internet cafes and got ganked by my parents. Sigh, I was young and ignorant then. Looking back now, I regret it. I really should have studied hard.”

“Previous promotional videos were always about professional players who won world championships. This is the first time someone has filmed from an ordinary person’s perspective, isn’t it? I have to say, it gives a very shocking feeling.”

“World champions indeed achieve success, but world champions are just a small fraction at the top of the pyramid. Overly promoting this small group can easily mislead people, making them think that becoming a professional player means fame and fortune. It causes many gaming-addicted teenagers to use ‘going pro’ as an excuse to avoid studying, ultimately wasting their youth and narrowing their future paths.”

“This promotional video essentially shatters these people’s fantasies, telling them that without the talent, they’d be better off studying well and finding a steady job.”

“Previously, Fei Huang Studio made a documentary called ‘Breaking the Cocoon to Become a Butterfly,’ and now they’ve made a new documentary called ‘Breaking the Cocoon Before Becoming a Butterfly.’ The echo between the two titles is great!”

“Indeed, Mr. Pei is earnestly advising those gaming-addicted teenagers not to be deceived by illusions.”

“So Mr. Pei is still the most responsible. Although Tenda also has e-sports industry under its umbrella and occupies a high market share, Mr. Pei didn’t blindly promote how bright the future of the e-sports industry is or trick gaming-addicted teenagers into blindly joining the e-sports industry. Instead, he very sincerely revealed the current state of the e-sports industry, allowing those gaming-addicted teenagers to think twice. I think this kind of behavior is truly meritorious!”

“This promotional video forms a stark contrast with ICL’s promotional video.”

“Indeed, although ICL’s promotional video is filmed perfectly, very cool, and excellent in all aspects, its filming concept is still stuck in the old days. It’s trying hard to package the concept of e-sports as something grand and noble, but this makes it a bit disconnected from reality and feels very unauthentic.”

“In contrast, the documentary ‘Breaking the Cocoon Before Becoming a Butterfly’ completely triumphs in intellectual depth! Although it appears to have a lower budget and doesn’t use particularly fancy filming techniques, it can still evoke resonance and discussion. I can only say, there’s a difference in their level of understanding!”

Zhao Xuming scrolled through the comments below the video, almost fuming with anger.

What the hell do they mean by “difference in level of understanding”?!

These opponents weren’t playing by the rules at all!

From a commercial perspective, ICL’s promotional video was perfect and flawless, with massive investment and attention to detail that completely outclassed “Breaking the Cocoon Before Becoming a Butterfly.”

But who would have thought that Mr. Pei had changed his approach!

No more techniques, now playing mind games!

“Breaking the Cocoon Before Becoming a Butterfly” was essentially dissecting the chronic problems within the entire e-sports industry, mercilessly exposing a side of the industry that was little known but objectively existed.

If viewers insisted on comparing it with ICL’s promotional video, they would definitely think ICL’s promotional video was a bit empty and fake!

Of course, this comparison itself was unreasonable. ICL’s promotional video was a proper commercial promotional video, and it didn’t do anything wrong. Why should it be compared like this?

But there was nothing he could do about it. If viewers insisted on making comparisons, Zhao Xuming couldn’t control that.

He looked at the video’s release time. “Breaking the Cocoon Before Becoming a Butterfly” was released just half an hour after ICL’s promotional video, almost back-to-back.

With them being so close together, viewers would subconsciously discuss these two videos together!

Zhao Xuming was furious.

This was a deliberate collision! A blatant one!

Mr. Pei must have prepared this promotional video long ago, waiting for ICL to release their promotional video so he could ambush them!

This move was absolutely heartless.

Zhao Xuming had been full of confidence, believing that this time ICL’s promotional video spared no expense and would definitely not lose. But Mr. Pei had already skipped the stage of burning money to improve promotional video quality and went straight to playing mind games!

With relatively little investment and unpretentious methods, he directly dissolved the core of ICL’s promotional video on a spiritual level, stealing all the attention and popularity!

The reduced heat and popularity of ICL’s promotion was quite a blow to Zhao Xuming.

After all, when negotiating broadcasting rights prices with these streaming platforms, the higher ICL’s popularity, the more leverage he had.

However, if it was just this, it wouldn’t be devastating.

Zhao Xuming thought about it and felt that in the current situation, with his silver tongue, there should still be room for recovery.

But as he continued scrolling through the comments section, he saw several new top-rated comments.

“This video exposes many chronic problems in the industry. I don’t know if everyone noticed the details in the video, but these professional players actually have very poor living conditions—reversed sleep schedules, eating takeout for long periods, all of which accelerate the deterioration of their health.”

“Indeed, it’s heartbreaking to watch. Although we know e-sports is a young person’s career, and those who don’t make it suffer greatly, even those who do make it don’t have it much better!”

“Wait, that’s not right, isn’t GPL’s treatment supposedly very good? Those DGE team members are all physically fit and mentally energetic, definitely not the physique you’d get from reversed sleep schedules and eating takeout!”

“GPL is fine, of course! When Mr. Pei forcefully entered the field, he had already established industry standards. All clubs were uniformly managed, with standardized contracts to protect players’ rights, unified meal options from Slackin’ Takeout, daily exercise at Tuoguan Fitness, and dedicated staff responsible for nutritional meals and players’ physical health…”

“But outside of GPL, in other e-sports areas, the players are still living the same hard life as before, with no changes!”

“Indeed, other game companies just mind their own business, and the various clubs are unlikely to voluntarily bear such enormous expenses. How many bosses are as visionary and responsible as Mr. Pei?”

“May I timidly ask, what’s the situation with ICL?”

“What situation could it be? Same as other projects. I haven’t heard of any measures from Finger Company or Longyu Group to guarantee ICL players’ rights. If there were any, they would have been boasting about it already, right?”

“Sigh, it seems ICL is just putting on a show. Although their promotional video is quite good and cool, the details are far behind GPL! Looking at it this way, GPL is the more professional, mature, and healthy league. ICL still falls short.”

“I think an interesting point is that all the game footage used in this promotional video is from GOG, yet GPL is the best-run e-sports event of all! This creates a very peculiar contrast: it’s clearly an AOE skill, but GPL perfectly immunized against all damage, while other e-sports events were shot to pieces!”

“Hahaha, after all, Tenda only has the rights to GOG, so they can’t show footage from other games, but what they’re implying is clear to those who understand.”

After reading these top-rated comments, Zhao Xuming was stunned.

He realized there was a major problem!

If the netizens’ discussions were limited to the filming techniques and intentions of the two documentaries, then it would only affect ICL’s initial popularity without shaking the foundation of the entire league.

But the netizens’ discussions had already delved into the basic structures of GPL and ICL leagues, and that was a big problem!

Everyone’s guesses were correct. ICL indeed had no similar measures, no standardized player contracts, and no unified schedule arrangements or living standard provisions.

Like other e-sports projects, the health and rights of ICL league players had not received much protection either.

But Zhao Xuming felt this was unfair! We are the competition organizers; this isn’t something we should be responsible for!

These are the clubs’ responsibilities, what do they have to do with us?

But viewers didn’t care about this. When they saw the gap between GPL and ICL leagues in their basic structures, they wouldn’t accept excuses. They’d just say that Finger Company and Longyu Group weren’t competent, that ICL wasn’t healthy enough and had poor development prospects!

Zhao Xuming finally understood why Zhu Yan had that attitude.

Because Zhu Yan had seen this trending incident and knew that ICL was about to be drawn into a vortex of public opinion, its value would be severely impacted.

Given that, why rush to be the sucker?

Of course, the better approach was to continue observing and negotiate hard for the lowest possible price for ICL’s broadcasting rights!