Everyone looked at each other in silence.
After a long while, Nie Yunsheng sighed deeply: “It seems that as long as Mr. Pei is around, we’ll never see the light of day.”
“Let’s disperse.”
“Let’s disperse.”
These bosses were all smart people. Without needing much explanation, they already understood their current situation.
This desperate strike planned by Lu Xiaoping was, in their view, the closest attempt to success. If it had been any other company, they couldn’t have withstood such an offensive.
And even if they could survive, they would inevitably be severely wounded, not emerging unscathed.
But Mr. Pei, as if he were cheating, had predicted their moves in advance and resolved the situation from a higher dimension.
Even the movie content they had meticulously prepared ended up serving Tenda Group, helping Mr. Pei increase his popularity and attention. All their preparations had added fuel to Tenda Group’s fire.
At this point, the anti-Tenda alliance had lost everything, including their underwear, and there was indeed no need for it to continue existing.
From now on, these companies actually had only two paths to choose.
One was to continue the anti-Tenda alliance’s behavior, maintaining their current business model and fighting Tenda to the death.
But as one could imagine, if these companies united to attack Tenda Group, with all companies pooling their wisdom and helping each other, yet still suffered a crushing defeat, could they win alone? That was absolutely impossible.
The other option was to gradually move closer to Tenda Group, like some other companies.
If you can’t beat them, join them—at least they could still get some soup by following Tenda.
But no matter what, regardless of which path they chose, it meant that their past days of making money while lying down were gone forever. This was actually a major failure that many companies had to face.
But what could they do?
No wonder Nie Yunsheng said that as long as Mr. Pei was around, they would never see the light of day.
This was actually a process of good money driving out bad. In the end, all companies would be assimilated by Tenda Group. Because those who didn’t play by Mr. Pei’s rules would naturally be eliminated, not even having the qualification to stay at the card table.
The numerous bosses stood up one after another, shaking their heads as they left.
The anti-Tenda alliance had started with a bang, but just a few months later, it disappeared without a sound.
…
…
One week later.
October 3rd, Thursday.
Qiao Liang was passionately gaming with several netizens, dominating in the online battle mode of “The Future You Choose.”
“Watch out for that sniper on the high ground, he should have already upgraded to smart cyber-eyes. Quickly farm some money, save up to upgrade leg springs to take him out, otherwise the pressure from the front is too great.”
“I finally completed my mantis blade. Everyone, distract them from the front, I’ll find a way to flank with optical camouflage and take out their backline.”
“Now we must concentrate our forces to take Hill No. 3 first. Once we control the high ground, we’ll have the initiative on the battlefield.”
Qiao Liang was enthusiastically discussing tactics with netizens in voice chat.
When “The Future You Choose” was first released, due to public opinion guidance, most players focused on the game’s single-player mode and plot interpretation.
After Qiao Liang released the first half of his video, “The Future You Choose” movie came out, and everyone’s attention shifted again.
It wasn’t until everything had settled that many players discovered that the online battle mode of “The Future You Choose” was also very interesting!
Actually, from the game’s single-player mode, one could see that it was well-suited for conversion to online play.
Because “The Future You Choose” didn’t place its main focus on restoring city details. The protagonist’s main storyline involved participating in battle after battle across various scenes, and these scenes were actually ready-made maps for the battle mode.
In the game, players playing as the resistance fighting against Tenda Group created a natural opposing force.
And in battle mode, players could simply play as the opposing sides, naturally fighting on these battle mode maps.
The game’s combat mechanics were also quite rich. Players could gain different combat abilities by modifying their prosthetic limbs.
For example, modifying legs could give jumping power and better mobility; modifying cyber-eyes could provide better vision, paired with smart weapons for better shooting accuracy; while modifying hardened skin and mechanical armor could reduce bullet damage.
Besides these, there were optical camouflage, mantis blades, and more, allowing cold weapon combat modes and hot weapon combat modes to blend well together, making player combat more diverse.
The game had three different basic battle modes.
The first mode was similar to traditional shooting games, mainly emphasizing the fun of shooting. Armor, optical camouflage, and melee weapons were weakened in this mode, primarily providing an experience like the traditional shooting gameplay of “Sea Fortress.”
The battle maps for this mode were generally small, where players could fully enjoy the satisfaction of rapid firing.
The second mode was the balanced mode. In this mode, players could achieve a cyclical counter effect through different methods. For example, upgrading heavy firepower and smart weapons could provide covering fire at key positions, which must be countered by snipers.
Snipers, meanwhile, were easily assassinated by assassins equipped with optical camouflage and melee weapons.
This cyclical counter effect required players to choose their next prosthetic upgrade based on the map’s characteristics and the specific combat situation. Team members also needed to allocate resources well, emphasizing division of labor. With the enhancement of various prosthetics, all soldiers became like superhumans, with specific strengths and skills.
The battle maps for this mode were generally medium-sized, with relatively rich map mechanics. Victory was mainly achieved by interacting with map mechanics to score points, with gameplay somewhat similar to MOBA games.
The third mode was PVE mode, which could be seen as multiplayer online completion of the original campaign objectives in the game.
In this mode, players could play as attackers or defenders. It was somewhat similar to a variant of endless mode, where difficulty could be continuously increased for higher-level challenges.
Additionally, the game’s payment model was also very interesting.
If players weren’t interested in the game’s plot, they could directly experience the online battle mode, which, like GOG, had no entry barrier at all.
However, players could later purchase in-game skins, characters, appearances, etc. The game itself was absolutely fair, just like GOG.
The plot that needed to be purchased wasn’t just the game’s storyline. It also included some skin characters and appearances, essentially packaging the game’s single-player plot content with some value-added appearance services.
Obviously, for Tenda Games, single-player gamers and online gamers were treated equally. Online gamers were encouraged to experience the game’s single-player plot, and single-player gamers were encouraged to battle with other players online.
Single-player game mode and online game mode were well integrated.
And this was just the initial planning. In the future, the game would continue to update with more content.
For example, new mechanical prosthetics, new characters, new skin appearances, new game maps, new battle modes, and so on.
Obviously, Tenda Games intended to use the background of “The Future You Choose” to try to integrate high-tech gunfight gameplay to the extreme.
This way, Tenda Group effectively held three different shooting games.
One was the more traditional “Sea Fortress,” another was “Bullet Mark 2,” which focused on resource collection and battle royale gameplay, and now the battle mode offered by “The Future You Choose” didn’t actually overlap with these two games. Instead, it focused more on a battle mode where each person had different upgrade paths and specialties, winning through close coordination.
In this way, Tenda Games had firmly established itself across the entire track, basically eliminating any possibility for latecomers.
These days, Qiao Liang had been playing the online mode of “The Future You Choose,” having a great time.
As his video influence continued to expand and his fan count grew, his live streaming room became increasingly lively.
Qiao Liang was playing the game while responding to questions in the comments.
“What? I talk about fighting against Tenda Group, but now I’m playing Tenda’s game and having a great time?”
“This viewer clearly hasn’t watched my video properly. I’m punishing you to watch my video again carefully, don’t misinterpret my meaning.”
“Haven’t I told everyone how to fight against Tenda Group?”
“One way is to maintain supervision, and the other is to see any opportunity to take advantage of deals and take them to the extreme. Don’t miss any benefits Tenda offers.”
“Look, Morning Dew Gaming Platform is giving away new games again. Hurry up and claim them!”
“Everyone must never treat Tenda as their own people. When you see Tenda launching any money-spending activities, you must eagerly participate. Try every means to take advantage of Tenda—this is the greatest help to Mr. Pei.”
“What, you don’t believe me? When has Qiao Laoshi ever lied to you? When I say I understand Mr. Pei the best, I definitely understand him the best. Just do as I say, and you won’t go wrong. Maybe Mr. Pei will even thank you.”
Qiao Liang was playing the game while casually chatting with the comments.
For him, his previous masterpiece was his most proud work in recent years.
And riding the waves of “The Future You Choose” game and movie, the anti-Tenda alliance finally announced complete failure. The earlier bustling public opinion, after a tide of “Selection Studies,” gradually calmed down.
Of course, Selection Studies was a discipline to be constantly read and renewed. Perhaps at some future time, it would be picked up again by people, reading new implications.
But for now, everyone had achieved a phased victory.
People had truly realized the existence of that intangible will and established a vigilant and offensive posture against it along with Mr. Pei.
Qiao Liang also said in his video that this would be a protracted war.
Everyone should keep this in mind, but in daily life, they should eat what they want to eat, drink what they want to drink, continue to use Tenda’s products, and continue to live their own lives.
Taking advantage of every deal from Tenda is the greatest support for Mr. Pei!