There wasn’t much news online recently. Most gaming circle news revolved around several key events: the money-burning war between Tenda and Finger Company, the 515 Gaming Festival, “Fitness Battle” and the Smart Fitness Clothesline Rack, the IOI mobile game, and so on.

Players didn’t quite know what to focus on.

Tenda had several games offering free items just for playing, while IOI had attractive discounts, plus the newly released IOI mobile game and “Fitness Battle”…

Precisely because the competition between the two companies was so intense, players were in a position to benefit like the proverbial fisherman who profits when the snipe and clam fight, constantly keeping an eye on both companies’ movements.

Yesterday, after the IOI mobile game was launched, many players expressed dissatisfaction with some unique monetization points in the game, and these sentiments continued to ferment.

Obviously, Finger Company and Longyu Group responded quickly. This newly announced lucky draw event was their show of sincerity to appease the players.

Qiao Liang read through the announcement and rules of this lucky draw event and couldn’t help but remark: “They really spared no expense!”

Currently, only the announcement for the lucky draw event had been released; the official launch would be tomorrow, Saturday.

But the specific rules were already clearly written out.

This lucky draw’s prize pool included a large number of precious skins from IOI, and even many discontinued limited edition skins had been included in the prize pool for players to draw.

More importantly, the prize pool for this lucky draw didn’t just include virtual items but also physical prizes!

For instance, the latest Pineapple phones, brand-name computers, graphics cards, mice, headphones, and so on.

Any digital products that players might like were included.

Most eye-catching was the official statement that there was a car in the entire prize pool!

Not some sky-high luxury car, just one worth a bit over 300,000 yuan, but for ordinary players, this was enough to drive many into a frenzy.

Moreover, this lucky draw offered a 70% discount and unlimited draws. It seemed like you couldn’t lose no matter how many times you drew—the only loss would be not drawing at all!

Of course, the draw probabilities had definitely been strictly calculated.

Game skins, especially some garbage skins, would have a higher probability of being drawn, while the rarer the skin, the lower the chance of getting it.

Those digital products had even lower probabilities than limited skins.

As for the car, there was only one in the entire prize pool, and it wasn’t purely based on probability. At the very least, you needed to spend over 100,000 yuan throughout the entire lucky draw process to have a chance of getting it—that was the basic condition.

For Longyu Group, a car worth a bit over 300,000 yuan wasn’t much. The key was that the car needed to generate enough promotional effect. For such items, it was best to reward the big spenders.

Of course, some less reputable game companies would play underhanded tricks with activities, outwardly preparing a pile of gifts but actually distributing them to internal company staff.

After all, there was no notarization or oversight for these lucky draws. All they needed was to create buzz around an event, and as for the prizes—well, better to keep the benefits in the family, while providing employee perks at the same time.

One expense serving two purposes—quite a calculated move.

Naturally, Finger Company and Longyu Group wouldn’t do such things. They were major companies that still cared about their reputation.

This was a crucial period, and if any underhanded operations were discovered, it would be a major scandal—the cost would outweigh the benefit.

So, apart from adding some conditions to the lucky draw that made it easier for big spenders to get prizes, other aspects were generally very fair and just.

Even someone like Qiao Liang, who was usually quite good at resisting temptation, felt a bit of an itch.

But just as he began to have thoughts about spending money, something felt off.

If it were just Finger Company’s lucky draw event, he definitely wouldn’t have had any other thoughts.

But after experiencing “Fitness Battle’s” lucky draw, when Qiao Liang looked at Finger Company’s lucky draw, he felt something was strange somewhere.

It wasn’t that the rewards in the prize pool weren’t good, nor that the discount wasn’t enough; it was just a feeling he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Actually, Finger Company’s lucky draw event is just as common as they come.”

“And to be fair, it’s quite generous.”

“It’s just that ‘Fitness Battle’s’ lucky draw system is very different from common lucky draw systems, which makes the comparison seem quite stark.”

“But then again, why would ‘Fitness Battle’ create such a lucky draw system?”

Qiao Liang suddenly fell into deep thought.

“Fitness Battle’s” lucky draw system didn’t seem complex, but this design was definitely not made by an ordinary designer.

The reason was simple: what designer would have the authority to implement a system with no restrictions on refunds?

When it involved such a significant amount of money, Mr. Pei would certainly have had to personally approve it.

Mr. Pei personally designing a lucky draw system—the reasons behind this were worth exploring.

Was it to be innovative and differentiate from other games’ lucky draw systems?

Or to make the game more consumer-friendly, win player goodwill, and achieve a low-margin, high-volume effect?

It couldn’t possibly be to earn less money, could it?

These reasons all seemed somewhat insufficient.

Mr. Pei shouldn’t be someone who would personally design a game just for the shallow reason of “differentiating from other games.”

With so many projects at Tenda now, any project that Mr. Pei personally approved definitely had deeper meaning!

Qiao Liang thought for a long time but still had no clue.

“I should check online. There must be many others who feel the same way.”

…

Qiao Liang easily found many discussions about this lucky draw.

Clearly, Finger Company and Longyu Group came prepared. They must have spent a good deal on promoting this lucky draw event and likely hired internet promoters as well.

Drawing a car was already quite rare in events held by game manufacturers. Coupled with a powerful promotional campaign, word quickly spread among the player community.

Many players expressed that it was too good to pass up!

Although previously everyone had criticized Finger Company’s activities for being stingy, saying they weren’t as generous as Tenda’s 515 Gaming Festival, and the IOI mobile game had been criticized again after its launch, to be fair, that was compared to Tenda.

Compared to other game companies, Finger Company’s activities were already quite generous.

And now that Finger Company had gone all out with this lucky draw event, allowing players to draw not only skins but also digital products and even a car, many players who had complained before suddenly had amnesia.

There were discussions about “Fitness Battle’s” lucky draw system as well, though not as many.

On one hand, this was because Tenda hadn’t hired promoters or done marketing; on the other hand, it was because the lucky draw only included in-game items, not physical goods, so the buzz was somewhat less.

However, most players participating in the discussion still felt it was incredibly consumer-friendly.

There were many on the forums showing off rare items. Almost everyone had requested refunds; it was just a matter of how much they refunded.

Some people had originally planned to spend only 200-300 yuan, but because they could refund freely, they couldn’t resist spending over 2,000, ultimately spending around 400 after refunds.

Others calculated the probabilities of various items based on charge records, checking which players passed the 0.8 break-even line and which “unlucky ones” had the worst luck.

Players seemed to have never shown such interest in the mechanics of a lucky draw system itself.

Qiao Liang frowned slightly: “Could it be… that Mr. Pei’s intention in creating this lucky draw system wasn’t just to complete a game feature, but also to deconstruct the very popular ‘lucky draw’ mechanic in games through this unique system?”