May 4th, Friday.

Magic City, Longyu Group Headquarters.

In the conference room, Eric was carefully reading a report while Zhao Xuming sat patiently nearby, occasionally observing Eric’s expression with caution.

After a long while, Eric put down the report and nodded: “Hmm, the quality of this report is acceptable. Although it’s not perfect, it does provide valuable reference.”

Zhao Xuming felt relieved and quickly said: “Of course! To complete this report, my colleagues gave it the highest priority. They consulted numerous data sources and distributed many survey questionnaires.”

“If it’s helpful to you, that’s our honor.”

Eric set the report aside: “Let’s conclude the report matter for now, but we can’t relax yet—there’s still much work to be done.”

“Regarding overseas leagues, we’re at a disadvantage in all regions except North America and Europe. The mobile game version’s development hasn’t been smooth either. The previous version didn’t implement data synchronization. I’ve already provided feedback to headquarters, and they’ve agreed to modify it to achieve data synchronization, but as a consequence, the mobile game’s launch will be delayed further.”

“The popularity of ‘Mission and Choice’ has made GOG’s new hero ‘Skylark’ a hit, which is also bad news for us…”

During this period, the confrontation between GOG and IOI had mainly focused on four different areas.

The first area was overseas leagues.

So far, leagues for both games had been established overseas, primarily concentrated in economically developed regions.

After all, you need a player base first, then players and audiences, before a league can gain traction.

The establishment of overseas leagues also accompanied the promotion of overseas servers.

Finger Company and Tenda Group employed two different promotional approaches: Finger Company took on everything themselves, managing promotional activities for leagues across all global regions by establishing branch offices for unified operations. Tenda, on the other hand, partnered with major local companies, giving them ample freedom.

Facts proved that Tenda Group’s method was clearly more effective in the early stages.

These major companies were familiar with local conditions, and since cooperating with Tenda was profitable, they naturally worked hard to promote it. Finger Company had stronger influence in North American and European regions, so both sides exhibited an evenly matched tug-of-war situation there. However, in regions such as South America, Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Southeast Asia, GOG clearly held the upper hand across the board.

The second area was the mobile version.

Finger Company had been developing IOI’s mobile version with good efficiency, and had already produced a first test version ready to begin testing.

However, after receiving the test version, Eric immediately called the executives, requesting they cancel this test and continue development.

Because Eric discovered that this test version of IOI’s mobile version didn’t achieve complete data synchronization!

Obviously, the person responsible for IOI mobile development at Finger Company hadn’t thought that far. They had simply ported over heroes from IOI that were suitable for mobile gaming, modified them to be controlled with virtual joysticks and skill wheels, and then symbolically ported over a few skins.

Regarding monetization, the original plan was to charge for heroes and skins again.

This seemed reasonable at first glance. Porting a PC game to mobile requires development and significant human resources. If players who bought skins on PC could use them freely on mobile, how would they recoup the mobile development costs?

But Eric’s overseas call made the executives realize the seriousness of this issue.

This wasn’t just a mobile game—it was part of the price war against GOG!

It’s worth noting that GOG had complete data synchronization. If players discovered that IOI’s PC and mobile data weren’t synchronized, and they had to repurchase skins on mobile, there would be an uproar.

Finger Company had already been criticized by players once for hero and skin pricing issues and certainly couldn’t make the same mistake again.

Eric couldn’t help but reflect that battling Mr. Pei meant never being able to relax for a moment!

Because Mr. Pei was always one step ahead, and any slight relaxation would definitely lead to falling into a trap that Mr. Pei had already dug.

But with this delay, the launch of IOI’s mobile version would be pushed back even further.

The third area was the ICL and GPL leagues.

There wasn’t much to say about this—the ICL league was still in a state of being completely outclassed by the GPL league.

Worth mentioning was that the ICL league currently had three major sources of popularity: the FV Club, Rabbit Tail Streaming’s unofficial commentary, and the BP Innovation Competition. All three sources of popularity were related to Tenda…

The fourth area was the current domestic market operations of IOI and GOG.

Again, not much to say—IOI was still being completely dominated by GOG.

More frightening was that the two games’ market shares weren’t even in the same tier to begin with, and recently, with the release of the “Mission and Choice” movie and game, GOG’s market share was actually still increasing, further squeezing IOI’s survival space!

Because GOG had collaborated with “Mission and Choice” to launch the new hero “Skylark.”

Initially, GOG was helping “Mission and Choice” generate popularity, but after “Mission and Choice” became a hit, it reversed and started driving popularity for GOG!

So, Eric had not been having an easy time lately. Various issues had him somewhat overwhelmed.

To defeat Mr. Pei, he needed to allocate time to study Mr. Pei’s thinking patterns, striving to know both himself and his enemy.

Of course, as early as six months ago, Eric had already studied Mr. Pei’s thinking patterns and made the judgment that Mr. Pei was a “gambler.”

Now he had Zhao Xuming and the Longyu Group team produce this report to further validate his ideas.

The facts proved that everyone’s views were indeed consistent, which gave Eric more confidence.

Figuring out how to exploit Mr. Pei’s “gambler” mentality was the key to breaking his undefeated legend!

After dismissing Zhao Xuming, Eric remained alone in the conference room, thoroughly sorting through the information he had recently obtained.

“There’s a crucial factor in each of Mr. Pei’s successes.”

“That is, Mr. Pei always seems able to ‘break through circles,’ which is quite remarkable.”

“Take ‘Mission and Choice’ for example. Almost everyone, upon learning about the investment in this game and movie, believed it would be impossible to recover the costs.”

“Because the market for games and movies is only so large, with a limited loyal user base. According to conventional data estimates, it couldn’t possibly recover its costs.”

“But judging from the game’s sales and the movie’s box office performance, it clearly can’t be measured by conventional data. In other words, ‘Mission and Choice’ attracted many people who don’t typically watch sci-fi movies, or even movies in general, and also convinced many people who don’t usually play RTS games to willingly spend money.”

“Moreover, the movie and game can enter overseas markets, which will be an additional source of income.”

“It’s precisely because of these additional groups and additional income that ‘Mission and Choice’ not only avoided losses but became a hit and made a significant profit.”

“This is Tenda Group’s strength, but it could also become its fatal weakness.”

“Because Mr. Pei often undertakes ventures with extremely high risk and equally high rewards, once he ‘breaks through circles,’ he always creates miracles. But if he fails, it would inevitably deal a severe blow to the entire Tenda Group.”

“This also aligns with my previous speculation: Mr. Pei’s secret to rapidly promoting GOG is actually burning money. Mr. Pei is a gambler, and he and Tenda Group are in a state of dancing on a knife’s edge—the company’s risk resistance isn’t strong.”

“Therefore, to beat Mr. Pei, we must exploit this point.”

“Now should be when Tenda Group’s capital chain is at its most vulnerable, making it the perfect time to strike!”

Previously, when Eric and Mr. Pei were asking each other three questions, Eric had mentioned a figure: 100 million dollars. He said this was his estimate of the maximum amount of money the Dyke Group could afford to burn.

Eric believed that this statement had likely established an anchor point in Mr. Pei’s psychology, creating a certain suggestive effect.

In other words, Mr. Pei would likely reserve about the same amount of funds to deal with Finger Company’s money-burning war. Even if he set aside some surplus, it wouldn’t be much.

The money-burning war had been ongoing, from IOI’s domestic server to domestic leagues, then to overseas leagues and the mobile version…

But Eric hadn’t directly staked all his chips, instead carefully burning money while observing.

Now, Eric believed the time had come.

For Tenda Group, “Mission and Choice” had consumed a massive amount of funds recently, and although the movie and game could be profitable, it would take a long time to recover those funds.

Additionally, Tenda Group had recently launched many new projects simultaneously, and the phone required substantial inventory, meaning their cash flow must be extremely tight.

Suddenly burning a large amount of money at this juncture was clearly the perfect opportunity!

If Mr. Pei didn’t match it, then this large sum of money would achieve excellent results, instantly reversing the offensive and defensive positions of IOI and GOG. If Mr. Pei did match it, Tenda Group’s already fragile capital chain would become even more precarious.

Eric couldn’t help but display a smug smile. After lying dormant for so long, he had finally caught an excellent opportunity to turn the tables!