At 8 PM that evening, a brand new column and a brand new video passed the review process.

Godly Masterpieces First Episode: “Game Developer” and a Large-Scale Performance Art!

Qiao Laoshi’s fans were all bewildered.

What was going on? Wasn’t he lying low?

After playing dead for three days, he was brazenly at it again?

And it was another sponsored video about the same game?

This was stirring up trouble!!

Recently, “Qiao Studies” had inexplicably gone viral on various video platforms. Although other video creators had also posted similar videos, Qiao Laoshi was undoubtedly the first, so he would have to take the blame.

Under these circumstances, releasing a video would undoubtedly result in the comments section being completely overrun by meme-spammers!

Was this… throwing good money after bad?

Since his reputation couldn’t be salvaged anyway, was he thinking that negative publicity is still publicity, and trying to cash in on the “Qiao Studies” trend?

Given Qiao Laoshi’s current predicament, fans could hardly avoid making such associations.

Netizens clicked on the video with mixed feelings of anxiety, concern, or anticipation for drama, preparing themselves to unleash criticism.

However, the first words of Qiao Laoshi’s video immediately silenced them.

“Hello everyone, I’m still your Qiao Laoshi.”

“I know what you all want to say, but before you start criticizing, I must first regretfully announce something to everyone.”

“Three days ago, on April Fools’ Day, we conducted a large-scale performance art piece, which was a complete success. However, the results of this performance art test are quite disheartening.”

“Yes, the theme of this performance art was: In the age of internet information, which is more likely to go viral—a maliciously dumbed-down short video or a premium game with rich content that costs millions to develop?”

“After our experiment, I regretfully announce the result to everyone.”

“It’s the former.”

Many people were about to start criticizing, but this opening immediately stopped the words in their tracks.

Only confusion remained.

Huh? Performance art?

What was going on here?

Puzzled, they continued watching.

Qiao Laoshi continued his explanation in the video.

After explaining the concept and definition of performance art, he began to introduce the purpose of this particular performance art piece.

According to Qiao Laoshi, this performance art was entirely initiated by Tenda, and its purpose was to explore a rather profound theme:

In the internet information age, people face too much information. This is an era of information explosion, yet also extreme information scarcity.

Information explosion refers to how everyone can see massive amounts of information online. An insignificant event in a small city might go viral overnight for some reason, becoming known nationwide by the next day.

Information scarcity refers to how, beneath the massive amount of information, truly valuable and meaningful information gets buried under garbage information that is fast-paced, highly entertaining, and attention-grabbing with gimmicks.

Therefore, this performance art conducted a comparison:

Qiao Laoshi and many video creators each published videos with simple content, excessive flattery through exaggerated tones and wording. All the videos were highly homogenized, with even the narration being identical.

This video pulled out all the stops to grab attention, including irritating factors like mixed Chinese-English language and excessive verbal fillers.

It was inherently valueless and meaningless, but when so many video creators published simultaneously, and the content itself was full of gimmicks and attention-grabbing elements, netizens would spontaneously follow the trend, instantly forming a special dissemination trend!

The rapid rise of “Qiao Studies” verified this point perfectly.

A maliciously dumbed-down short video, because it lowered standards enough and because enough people jumped on the bandwagon, actually went viral and became a hot meme!

This proved very well that in this era, perhaps most of what you thought were accidental viral phenomena had someone pushing them behind the scenes!

In contrast, Tenda’s new game “Game Developer” was a product that didn’t look particularly appealing at first glance.

Its content was very rich, but all hidden in deep layers, requiring patience to uncover.

It exposed industry realities, satirized industry chaos, and was full of innovation and sincerity in voice acting, art style, and gameplay mechanics.

However, what situation did such a content-rich game face?

Mixed reviews, with players not appreciating it!

Many players didn’t even get into it, quitting after just five minutes.

The contrast between short videos and this game was the core of this performance art, which was ironic in itself!

By this point in the video, many viewers were dumbfounded.

So that’s what it was about??

Thinking carefully, it made sense.

What game company would be so foolish as to let video creators make such disgusting sponsored content? Wouldn’t that damage their company image and product image?

While Qiao Laoshi might not have much integrity, judging from his previous videos, he was still a sincere video creator. How could he use such inferior methods to make money?

It wasn’t that it didn’t match his character, but mainly that it didn’t match his intelligence!

Moreover, Qiao Laoshi wasn’t an exception. So many video creators all used the same script for promotion—how to explain that?

Could it be that these video creators actively and spontaneously copied Qiao Laoshi’s script?

Impossible!

The only explanation was that Tenda had provided a uniform script!

Why would the sponsor want all sponsored video creators to use the same script? And such a poor script at that?

Wouldn’t it be better to let them create independently?

Spending the same money to achieve better promotional effects—why not?

Yet Tenda specifically chose this seemingly foolish promotional method, making all video creators mindlessly read from scripts, resulting in almost entirely negative effects!

This was indeed unreasonable.

Thinking about it this way, Qiao Laoshi’s explanation seemed to be the only possibility.

This was a large-scale performance art piece!

And subsequent events had indeed verified this point.

“Qiao Studies” went viral, while “Game Developer” didn’t.

Didn’t this perfectly prove the point? In the internet information age, truly meaningful cultural works are often buried, while garbage information fills netizens’ time!

The more they listened, the more sense it made.

They continued listening.

The video topic smoothly shifted to “Game Developer.”

This was Qiao Laoshi’s strength.

This new video column, called “Godly Masterpieces,” adopted a completely different narrative style from “Trash Game Roast” and “Monthly New Game Recommendations.”

Qiao Laoshi analyzed from various aspects why “Game Developer” could be called a masterpiece.

“Many players think that evaluating whether a game is a masterpiece mainly depends on its graphics, gameplay, story, controls, replayability, and so on.”

“But these are all differences between ‘excellent works’ and ‘ordinary works,’ not related to ‘masterpieces.'”

“A so-called ‘masterpiece’ must create a huge impact in the industry, must be rich in content that withstands repeated discussion and refinement, and must resonate at the soul level!”

“Works that don’t meet this standard can only be called excellent, not masterpieces.”

“‘Game Developer’ is precisely a masterpiece that meets this standard!”