December 24th, Monday.
Pei Qian came to work as usual, in a good mood.
This was because last weekend, two more episodes of “The Successor” had aired, but on the AiLiDao website and other rating sites, the ratings for “The Successor” continued to plummet!
Even on Tenda’s own TPDb website, the ratings had dropped significantly.
The situation was slightly better on other websites due to the presence of original novel fans, but not by much.
Now the rating for “The Successor” on the AiLiDao website had fallen to 6.3, almost a full point lower compared to when it first aired.
For a drama series on the AiLiDao website, a score below 6 was already considered below the passing line.
Ratings on these video websites tended to be inflated; many excellent anime frequently achieved high scores like 9.8 or 9.7, while a 7 was already considered “quite mediocre—take it or leave it” in many people’s eyes.
Now with a score around 6, it was undoubtedly at the level of a terrible show. This rating alone would turn away countless potential viewers.
And yet episodes four and five of “The Successor” had already begun to enter the main plot—the story should have started to become exciting.
A quick look at the bullet comments and reviews made it clear: this was obviously the effect of Qian’s hit piece!
Although episodes four and five were more exciting than the first three, and Phil’s grand plan was gradually unfolding, the key problem was that Qian’s hit piece had attacked the core of “The Successor’s” story and had, to some extent, made predictions about it.
People who had read that article already had expectations about what would happen next in “The Successor.” So when they watched episodes four and five, they weren’t excited but rather felt bored, or even developed a contrarian attitude.
The influence of this hit piece wasn’t limited to just one website—it had become essential material whenever people discussed “The Successor.” In other words, it had become ammunition for criticizing “The Successor.”
Whenever people argued online about whether “The Successor” was good or not, someone would inevitably share the content of this article.
Following this trend, even if the plot of “The Successor” gradually improved, with bigger scenes and faster storytelling pace, it would be meaningless to those who had already abandoned the show.
People who weren’t watching the later episodes certainly wouldn’t bother to come back and change their ratings.
In short, the situation was looking great!
Additionally, the FV team and other teams, as well as the GOG project staff who had gone to Europe to organize the world championship, would all be returning to China within this week.
After the world championship ended, Pei Qian had let everyone play in Europe for a week.
Logically speaking, since the world championship was so successful, these people should go on a suffering trip.
But as the saying goes, one thing is one thing—letting them play in Europe for a week and spend more money was one matter, while sending them to Bao Xu for “suffering” to commend their “achievements” after they returned was another. The two were unrelated.
However, Pei Qian was unprecedentedly worried about GOG’s prospects.
Both games had held world championships, but ioi had lost the championship to the FV team and saw a sharp drop in popularity in their domestic server—suffering heavy losses. By comparison, GOG seemed to be making extraordinary profits.
For domestic players, two consecutive championships from a domestic team was certainly a cause for nationwide celebration, and the pre-competition activities exclusively for domestic server players had also gained extremely high popularity.
For foreign players, although European teams still hadn’t made it to the finals, they had made substantial progress compared to last year, giving people hope. Moreover, the world championship was held on European home turf, and Tenda as the organizer had given them full respect.
The newly launched spectator function had comprehensively enhanced the viewing experience and discussion level.
Servers in various regions had also launched a series of activities in coordination with the world championship, further strengthening GOG’s global influence and squeezing out more of ioi’s market share.
In short, they’d won—they’d won big time.
But what about next?
Pei Qian had gone to great lengths to poach both Eric and Zhao Xuming, hoping they would work hard to curb GOG’s rapid expansion.
But since they arrived, the expansion had become even more vigorous. With this development, GOG’s market share and revenue growth over the past month or two exceeded what had been achieved in the previous half year combined.
What could be done about this?
Eric, oh Eric, I’ve really misjudged you.
Pei Qian felt helpless. Some people truly were difficult to know—Eric had seemed so reliable, yet turned out to be such a disappointment.
However, there was one piece of good news: Zhao Xuming, who had been poached along with Eric, was still reliable.
The offline viewing activities for the domestic server had been arranged by Zhang Yuan, and the update to the spectator function was done by the Rabbit Tail Streaming team.
Even the plan for streaming platforms to buy broadcasting rights had only gone wrong because of his own guidance.
All things considered, Mr. Zhao had essentially done nothing!
This kind of performance was truly excellent.
So Pei Qian felt he must further intensify the internal conflict between Zhao Xuming and Eric, letting Zhao Xuming gradually gain the upper hand and suppress the bewitched Eric.
Previously, Pei Qian had already given Zhao Xuming hints, making it clear that he was on the same level as Eric and shouldn’t always listen to Eric, but should have his own ideas.
Now it seemed that this alone wasn’t enough.
Pei Qian decided that when Zhao Xuming and Eric returned, he would lavish praise on Zhao Xuming to build his confidence, while also giving him a hint.
By then, Zhao Xuming would realize that he had been coasting all along, coasting steadily, and was still being praised by Mr. Pei. Surely he would continue to coast in the future? He might even drag Eric down with him.
This way, Pei Qian would achieve his goal and be satisfied.
As Pei Qian was pondering this, there was a knock at the door.
Looking up, he saw it was Meng Chang.
“Mr. Pei, this is the second round of publicity plan for ‘The Successor.’ Please take a look.”
Meng Chang handed over the plan with both hands.
Pei Qian’s face lit up with joy.
Well, Meng Chang was getting better and better at this.
Seeing that “The Successor’s” ratings had dropped significantly and its popularity couldn’t be raised, was he taking this opportunity to request additional publicity funds to earn a higher commission?
Good, good, this “press the advantage against a retreating enemy” approach was very much in the style of his own past actions.
After quickly scanning the plan, the smile on Pei Qian’s face grew even broader.
This plan was solid!
It was still similar to the previous one, continuing to place advertisements and promotional resources through the original channels, but with one change: they would use the official account to like and share reviews that analyzed the deeper meaning of “The Successor.”
With “The Successor” creating such a stir when it first aired and attracting so many viewers, there were bound to be reviewers among them.
Just as there were reviewers like Qian who criticized it as worthless, there would naturally be reviewers who liked “The Successor.”
Some of these might also be fans of the original novel.
But at present, the reviews from those who liked “The Successor” hadn’t generated the same huge response as Qian’s review.
The reason was simple: criticism was more easily accepted than preaching.
Why did so many people watch shows that mocked bad films, while fewer paid attention to serious film analysis?
It was because systematically criticizing bad films gave people a sense of mental pleasure, satisfaction, and even superiority.
These positive reviews of “The Successor” were all earnestly explaining how great the deeper meaning of the show was, which felt like preaching and created a contrarian psychology, making them less easily accepted.
Additionally, the first three episodes of “The Successor” had already left people with a very poor impression. When these two emotions combined, they gave Qian’s review enormous room to thrive.
In Meng Chang’s plan, they would use official likes to acknowledge these reviews.
Pei Qian was very satisfied with this approach.
Because this method obviously wouldn’t help increase popularity at all, but would instead invite more criticism.
When had an official account ever personally interpreted the deeper meaning of their own work?
Especially for a form of expression like a TV series—wasn’t it too degrading to personally explain it?
Moreover, this would make the audience’s contrarian psychology even worse: “What? Your official account is liking this content—are you implying that ‘The Successor’ really does have this deeper meaning? Are you implying that we’re all stupid and don’t understand your deeper meaning? But we do understand—we just don’t accept it!”
It was foreseeable that this move would further anger those viewers who had given low ratings, and some might become even more motivated to criticize “The Successor” more vigorously on various forums and websites.
This was a good thing!
Pei Qian silently gave Meng Chang a thumbs up for this move. It seemed that Meng Chang had put in a lot of thought this month to earn his commission.
Meng Chang had originally wanted to explain a bit more, but seeing Mr. Pei smiling and occasionally nodding, he knew that Mr. Pei must have understood the plan.
In that case, further explanation would seem redundant.
Meng Chang’s plan was actually quite simple, with two objectives: first, maintain attention; second, provoke debate!
Because he had placed all his bets on what would happen three weeks later.
Last week, the first round of elections had been held in Yukelaya, with Vasily the Great ranking second among all candidates, lower than the incumbent president but not by much.
Since no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, the top two would proceed to a second round of voting, which would be decisive.
This result had surprised many people on foreign websites, as they hadn’t expected Vasily the Great to receive so many votes. Various predictions online began to change, and the odds shifted from over 5 to around 1.8.
Meng Chang was glad he had acted quickly.
But mainstream foreign media still believed that Vasily the Great could not possibly be elected.
In the first round of voting, many people might have cast protest votes, but in the second round, they would surely return to their senses and rationality.
However, this result had further confirmed to Meng Chang the correctness of Mr. Pei’s vision, and made him even more determined about his subsequent publicity plan!