June 13th, Wednesday.

Magic City, Longyu Group Headquarters.

Zhao Xuming very carefully knocked on Eric’s office door, then cautiously asked, “The FV team’s champion skin has been completed. Should we prepare the promotional plan?”

Eric appeared to be troubled by other matters and showed little interest in the champion skin, casually waving his hand. “CEO Zhao, just arrange it as you see fit.”

Zhao Xuming nodded, “Understood.”

As he was about to leave, Eric added, “The summer promotion is coming up. Finger Company plans to continue promotional activities globally. The champion skin promotion can be incorporated into the summer promotion.”

“Especially in the ICL region, the discount can be slightly larger, after all, it’s the champion region. I don’t think other regions will have major objections.”

Since it was the champion region, the champion skin discount should naturally be more substantial.

Other regions don’t agree?

Well, bring home a championship then. When you win, you can also enjoy this treatment.

Zhao Xuming quickly nodded, “No problem. I’ll also warm up the summer promotion activities at the same time!”

With that, he carefully closed the door and left.

Zhao Xuming was well aware that Eric had not been in a good mood lately, so he had to be extremely careful.

Ever since losing to Tenda in last month’s 515 Game Festival activities, Eric had been in a state of agitation and bewilderment.

Clearly, this had been quite a blow to him.

Originally, when he heard the news that Tenda was selling its building, Eric thought his plan was about to succeed and almost wanted to open champagne to celebrate.

But unexpectedly, in just a day or two, the situation suddenly reversed!

As soon as rumors spread that Tenda Group was having financial problems, numerous companies extended helping hands, and Tenda’s loyal users went on a spending spree—buying games, phones, and even smart fitness clothes racks sold out!

As a result, Mr. Pei effortlessly overcame the crisis without shedding blood.

Moreover, Tenda’s 515 Game Festival activities completely overwhelmed those of Finger Company and Longyu Group in terms of influence, discount levels, and final reputation.

For Tenda, although they spent a lot of money, they successfully achieved their goals.

But for Eric, it was a different story.

He also spent a considerable amount, though not as much as Tenda, which made Darc Group’s executives very dissatisfied with him. Most critically, this expenditure didn’t achieve the effect he wanted.

Although the spending attracted many users and won some reputation, it was far from what Eric desired.

Now, Eric faced difficulties both internally and externally.

After the global finals of IOI, he had boasted confidently to replace Christian in front of Darc Group and Finger Company executives, analyzing everything thoroughly. But now, after managing IOI’s domestic server for almost half a year, he still hadn’t achieved any substantial results.

This was extremely embarrassing.

Of course, Eric felt he was being wronged in this matter.

It wasn’t that he was slacking off; there truly wasn’t much he could do!

GOG had long dominated the domestic MOBA game market, with promotions penetrating every corner through various online and offline channels. It was almost impossible to steal players from GOG using traditional methods.

Unless IOI’s game quality was significantly better than GOG’s.

But the problem was that IOI’s quality wasn’t better than GOG’s. In fact, it was inferior in many aspects such as player habits, hero distinctiveness, cultural identity, detailed gameplay, PC and mobile game integration, and more.

In this case, no matter how much promotional funds were invested, it was like throwing money into a bottomless pit—completely useless!

Therefore, Eric’s approach was to promote while competing with Tenda in spending money. He thought that when Tenda’s financial chain couldn’t sustain any longer, he would seize the opportunity to turn defeat into victory!

But unexpectedly, the result was like this.

It felt like they were about to wear down the boss, but then the boss struck a pose and restored full health!

This made Eric’s behavior seem quite foolish, even nonsensical.

The impression he gave to outsiders was that his operations were as fierce as a tiger, but his record was 0-5.

So within Darc Group and Finger Company, voices of dissatisfaction with Eric emerged. To secure his position as the Greater China regional head, Eric had to communicate frequently with headquarters, often making compromises and concessions, unable to focus all his energy on work.

Externally, Eric couldn’t find a way to break the stalemate.

Tenda seemed too formidable.

After the minor financial issue last time, Tenda not only quickly recovered but also seemed completely unaffected in all its operations.

The Snack Market, large experience store, and many other projects still progressed methodically, spending money without hesitation.

It was as if the previous money-burning war with Eric never existed.

Eric was confused and began to doubt himself.

Was there still any point in continuing to compete with Tenda in spending money?

He pondered this question for half a month without reaching a clear conclusion.

So currently, Longyu Group’s promotional activities for IOI’s domestic server were basically at a standstill. Besides essential daily promotions such as ICL league promotions and game update content promotions, there were no major promotional activities initiated.

It had been quiet until now.

But life had to go on.

Now, the FV team’s champion skin, which had been in production since March, was finally completed. Both Eric and Zhao Xuming believed they should take this opportunity to promote it properly.

After all, this was IOI’s first champion skin, and it celebrated Chinese players winning a championship. A well-executed promotional campaign would help attract more new players to the domestic server.

Considering game development speeds in this world, three months to create a champion skin was clearly a bit long.

But there was a reason for this.

During the skin production process, Finger Company’s designers repeatedly communicated with FV team members, hoping to achieve perfection. They not only sought opinions at the beginning of production but also made several revisions during the process.

Given the cultural differences between East and West, and the communication barriers between designers and team members, considerable effort was spent on communication.

Additionally, since they wanted to make the skin as perfect as possible, the production process inadvertently took this long.

Both Finger Company’s designers and Eric were very satisfied with the final product.

This black and gold style skin was absolutely cool and definitely among the top-tier skins in both IOI and GOG!

Eric and Finger Company executives had debated about how the skin should look.

Some even suggested deliberately making the skin ugly. After all, FV team was Mr. Pei’s team, and if FV team’s skin looked too good, wouldn’t that benefit their competitor?

But this suggestion was quickly rejected.

Because this was also IOI’s first champion skin. If it didn’t look good, wouldn’t that embarrass Finger Company even more?

It was a dilemma.

Make it ugly, primarily embarrassing themselves;

Make it cool, primarily enhancing someone else’s image.

It was quite uncomfortable!

But after weighing the pros and cons, Finger Company had to swallow this bitter pill and put their heart and soul into the production, benefiting FV team.

Now that the skin was completed, such a cool skin naturally deserved good promotion.

Zhao Xuming returned to his office, where his staff had already submitted an initial version of the champion skin promotional plan.

After carefully reviewing it, he added content related to the summer promotion.

According to Finger Company’s schedule, the summer promotion would start in the last week of this month, on June 26th.

At that time, IOI would have significant discount activities globally, which would be a perfect opportunity to offer a favorable discount for the champion skin and earn some goodwill.

Additionally, the ICL league would have its spring finals this month.

Although the start time was much later than the GPL league, the ICL league had fewer teams and a shorter schedule. It would have its finals at the end of this month, one week later than the GPL league, coinciding with the summer promotion period.

Finger Company considered it perfect timing to determine the spring champions in each region during the summer promotion and launch a series of additional discounts at the end of the summer promotion for the championship lineup.

If these three activities could be consolidated, the promotional effect would be excellent.

But there was a small problem: the champion skin was already completed, and if they waited until the summer promotion to release it, they would waste these two weeks, which wasn’t cost-effective.

Zhao Xuming considered carefully and suddenly had a bright idea.

The champion skin would go on sale immediately, but its initial discount would be the same as during the summer promotion!

This would achieve two goals: it would utilize these two weeks to let the champion skin’s popularity fully ferment, creating a good promotional effect lasting until the start of the summer promotion; and it wouldn’t affect the interests of initial purchasers due to the summer promotion discounts. It would also warm up the massive summer promotion discounts in advance, making players look forward to the summer promotion activities.

Typically, the initial discount for skins was relatively small, around 20-30% off, while the summer promotion discounts were more substantial, possibly reaching 50-60% off.

If the champion skin was first sold at 20% off for two weeks, then suddenly dropped to 50% off during the summer promotion, early buyers would certainly be upset.

But if the champion skin wasn’t discounted or was only 20% off during the summer promotion, that would also be strange.

So, it made sense to go all in—set the champion skin’s initial discount the same as the summer promotion discount. This way, after buying the champion skin, players would still look forward to other skins during the summer promotion, maximizing the promotional effect.

Moreover, the related promotional heat could continue until the end of the summer promotion and ICL spring finals next month, which seemed like a perfect plan!

Zhao Xuming found this increasingly suitable, immediately modified the promotional plan submitted by his staff, and presented it to Eric.

Eric also strongly agreed with this plan, as it was the most reasonable and efficient promotional strategy under the current circumstances.