The video formally began.

This “Tian Gongzi’s” video style was clearly completely different from Qiao Laoshi’s.

No matter which series of videos Qiao Laoshi made, the beginning was always the familiar opening, a slightly sarcastic tone, and greetings to the audience.

He would briefly introduce the background, and then naturally enter the main topic.

But this Tian Gongzi’s style was completely opposite. There was no preliminary preparation or build-up whatsoever. He went straight to the main point, which almost caused Yan Qi, who was accustomed to quickly skipping the first ten seconds, to miss crucial information.

At the beginning of the video, there was first a black screen with standard explanatory captions.

“After 16 days, the Morning Dew Gaming Platform’s extremely costly sociological experiment has finally concluded.”

“Whether they obtained their expected results, we don’t know. Perhaps the result disappointed them greatly, or perhaps it was well within their expectations.”

“But for them, the final result may not be important.”

“What’s important is that this experiment has made one thing clear: expecting even a portion of humans to remain rational for a sufficiently long period is still a luxury.”

…

This opening left Yan Qi stunned.

Just like the title “A Soul-Searching Question for Every Player,” the opening was eye-catching enough, even exaggerated.

How did it become a sociological experiment?

How did keeping humans rational become a luxury?

Yan Qi had seen the last sentence in a classic domestic science fiction novel, though the specific wording and application context were different.

The original sentence should have been: “Expecting humans to remain rational forever is indeed a luxury.”

The original used “forever,” while the video used “a portion of humans” and “a sufficiently long period,” clearly lowering the requirement and making many concessions.

In the video, this lowered requirement obviously had less mockery and more helplessness.

The meaning was: Forget about expecting all humans to remain rational forever; expecting even a portion of them to remain rational for a long enough time is a luxury!

Especially when this paragraph was spoken in AEEIS’s unique voice, it had a different feeling.

It was as if an artificial intelligence life form was standing right in front of you, looking at all humans with no expression, conveying its helplessness.

Of course, whether artificial intelligence actually has the emotion of “helplessness” is debatable.

But if it doesn’t have the emotion of “helplessness,” perhaps it would seem even more helpless.

Undeniably, this opening attracted Yan Qi.

He was puzzled. When did the Morning Dew Gaming Platform conduct any sociological experiment? Hadn’t they been making one bad move after another, completely mishandling a good hand?

Could this be justified? Could this be explained away?

With confusion, Yan Qi continued watching.

…

“If creating a gaming platform for profit, with sufficient funds, there is a mature, safe, and complete template that can be applied.”

“Directly purchasing traffic from other channels, redirecting flows from apps with many users, negotiating game exclusivity with well-known game developers… these are all highly cost-effective, zero-risk startup plans.”

“While placing a large number of advertisements online and offline is a method with extremely low cost-effectiveness, low conversion rates, and poor results.”

“This is common knowledge in the industry, even game operators at small game companies know this approach.”

“The Morning Dew Gaming Platform is a financially well-off gaming platform. Judging from the quality of the platform’s program, the core members should be industry elites. Such a platform has no reason not to understand these things.”

…

The video briefly introduced these highly cost-effective startup plans, including specific processes and some successful cases.

Yan Qi nodded in agreement.

Indeed, that’s how it is!

Actually, if a game channel wants to get started, as long as it has money, it’s not difficult.

Many channel providers price their traffic clearly. A featured position in a specific area can continuously direct users to a certain app or game. Although this traffic seems expensive, compared to advertising, the cost-effectiveness is much higher.

Similarly, more money can be spent cooperating with some app stores to be featured on the recommended list for a period of time, which is also far more effective than advertising.

As for negotiating exclusivity with well-known game developers—an approach most designers would think of—that goes without saying.

In short, industry insiders with minimal experience could think of at least four or five more cost-effective traffic acquisition methods. With enough money spent, they could help the Morning Dew Gaming Platform start up steadily, smoothly, and without too many worries.

Yet the Morning Dew Gaming Platform chose the least effective, lowest cost-effective option: advertising!

Of course, advertising isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s basically a step that large gaming platforms would take.

When certain gaming platforms have already developed into very large channels, are highly profitable, and the previous methods no longer have obvious effects, only then would they turn to online advertising, even TV advertising, seeking further expansion to attract more users.

When have small gaming platforms ever been seen advertising online?

So, the Morning Dew Gaming Platform’s behavior was indeed very abnormal.

Previously, Yan Qi was anxious and angry seeing the Morning Dew Gaming Platform make one bad move after another.

But now, thinking again, attributing this simply to the platform’s leadership being outsiders or being too stupid was clearly unreasonable.

Because no matter how stupid, there should be a limit.

This kind of choice isn’t difficult. Even ordinary internet users could distinguish which is more cost-effective and which is less with a simple explanation.

It couldn’t be that the boss of the Morning Dew Gaming Platform was a particularly, especially ridiculous outsider, autocratic, unwilling to listen to others’ opinions, and even lacking the most basic logical thinking and comprehension abilities, could it?

This possibility seemed too low.

If on a multiple-choice question with four options, where the other three options could be determined as correct answers at a glance, yet they chose the most outrageous wrong answer.

Wouldn’t this suggest that they deliberately chose the wrong answer?

Moreover, thinking back, Yan Qi realized that all employees of the Morning Dew Gaming Platform seemed to obey this behind-the-scenes boss without question.

If it were outsiders leading insiders, these employees would have some complaints, not executing orders silently like they were now.

So, there must really be an issue!

Yan Qi hurriedly continued watching.

…

“Clearly, there’s only one explanation for this situation: the Morning Dew Gaming Platform did this deliberately.”

“The platform’s display of the number of bugs in games, as well as regulations like ‘games will be removed if the not-recommended rate exceeds 55% during the trial period,’ are actually part of a special experiment.”

“What it’s verifying is: when a gaming platform focuses on providing quality content and delegates the rights to filter, judge, and even remove games all to players, can players remain rational, achieve effective self-management, and use these rights well?”

“Unfortunately, from the current results, the answer is negative.”

“Not only did a small portion of players fail to remain rational, but they also successfully incited most of the platform’s players to join this irrational group, causing these rights to be completely abused, going against the platform’s original intentions.”

“Despite having more rights compared to other platforms, these rights, due to players’ excessive focus on short-term benefits, resulted in long-term losses, ultimately making the environment of a player-friendly platform worse than others.”

“Is this the tragedy of the gaming platform or the tragedy of the players?”

…

Yan Qi’s eyes widened. This content was so shocking that he fell into a state of confusion.

He initially wanted to drag the progress bar back to listen to this paragraph again, but then he found that there was a more detailed explanation coming up.

First was the special handling of bugs on the Morning Dew Gaming Platform.

On other platforms, regardless of whether a game has bugs or how many bugs it has, as long as it can run normally, it can be launched, and bugs can be fixed gradually afterward.

Many players end up playing half-finished games with bugs, some of which severely impact the gaming experience.

Logically, this situation shouldn’t exist at all, because players are paying for a finished game product, not a half-finished one.

If you went to a restaurant, paid in full, and were served a dish that was only half-cooked, even if the chef repeatedly promised that it would be fully cooked after adding some ingredients and stir-frying it again in five minutes, customers would definitely be furious on the spot.

If a game is filled with many bugs that affect the gaming experience, it shouldn’t be launched. Instead, it should continue to be developed and patched until it reaches an extremely high level of completion before launch.

But for other platforms and game developers, what are a few bugs? Launching early means earning money early.

As a result, players’ interests are sacrificed.

Unlike other platforms, the Morning Dew Gaming Platform’s strict quality control of games discouraged many half-finished products, gave up the huge profits these games would bring, and ensured players’ gaming experience.

And to enhance players’ sense of participation, they also allowed everyone to see the bug-fixing status of each game in real-time.

This was like those restaurants with transparent kitchens. Although it doesn’t help improve the taste of the dishes, it allows diners to see what’s happening in the kitchen, which itself shows a great deal of trust.

But were players grateful for this?

Not at all.

Not only were they ungrateful, but various conspiracy theories emerged. Some said the platform was hyping it up, while others said the data was fake.

Despite being a necessary measure and an important right, most people didn’t care at all, and even questioned the platform’s motives.