After having a big meal with Ma Yang, Pei Qian had accomplished three things at once: he had arranged Rabbit Tail Live Streaming’s future development direction, found a good place for Hu Xianbin, and ensured that Tengda Games could retain a good designer like Yu Fei.
After the meal, Ma Yang said he was going to go back and digest everything properly—both the food and the work direction Brother Qian had arranged for him.
It was clear that Old Ma was taking this matter seriously, but Pei Qian wasn’t worried, because whether Ma Yang took it seriously or not had no positive correlation with whether the venture would succeed.
Pei Qian took a little stroll, planning to find a nearby Slackin’ Internet Café to have a cup of coffee, sit for a while, and help his digestion.
Nearly two months had passed since the Doubt VR glasses had been released.
From the initial complete sellout at Slackin’ Internet Cafés to now, the hype had finally died down a bit.
After all, it had been two months—even the strongest addiction should calm down a little by now.
Many people had already bought VR glasses and didn’t need to visit internet cafés every day. Those who frequented internet cafés had basically completed most of the games there.
So, the overall customer flow in the cafés was gradually returning to a normal state. Especially in some relatively remote branches, the coffee areas often had empty seats available.
Even so, the customer flow in the VR experience zone was still close to that of the regular computer internet zone. The popularity remained high, and who knew when it would truly cool down.
It could only be blamed on how addictively playable “Animal Island VR” was…
Pei Qian sat in the coffee area and silently sighed.
Well, since things were already this way, there was no point in obsessing over it.
After ordering a free cup of coffee, Pei Qian took out his phone and indeed saw that Min Jingchao had already sent today’s activity data.
Pei Qian placed his phone on the table, holding the coffee cup with one hand ready to drink, while scrolling through the screen with the other.
“Hmm?”
Pei Qian’s right hand had just brought the coffee cup to his lips when he put it down again.
Because he noticed that today’s data seemed a bit off?
For the previous two days, the decline in GOG’s data had been quite obvious, but today, although the data was still declining, the rate of decline seemed to have become less pronounced?
Pei Qian picked up the coffee cup again and brought it to his lips.
“Hmm… this kind of data variation can have many reasonable explanations.”
“For example, players who are more sensitive to reward stimulation probably went to play IOI as soon as the event started. More people participated on the first and second days, and the number of new players participating in the event would naturally show a gradually decreasing trend.”
“Another example, players who participated in the IOI event on the first day might have gotten a bit tired after playing for two days and wanted to check back on GOG. This could also cause GOG’s data decline to slow down.”
“During the middle phase of the holiday, from the third to the sixth day, players have the most gaming time—they don’t need to go out or visit relatives. So many players who weren’t playing before have come online, or they’re teaming up with friends in GOG… Although players are still continuously being diverted to IOI, because the overall number of online players has increased, the downward trend in the data has slowed…”
“If we were looking at IOI’s data, the increase should be even more obvious.”
The coffee was a bit hot. Pei Qian held the cup and quickly thought of many possible explanations.
But then, he put the coffee cup down again.
“This isn’t right, I can’t think like this!”
“Although all these explanations make sense, what if the real reason is something else? Wouldn’t I be deceiving myself again?”
“I must take this seriously, assume there’s a problem with the event, and conduct a careful analysis and investigation!”
“If I’m being overly cautious, that’s fine; but if there really is a problem, I’ll know immediately!”
With this thought, Pei Qian immediately picked up his phone from the table and began browsing various gaming forums to check the discussions among players, especially IOI players.
After all, Pei Qian was actually on IOI’s side.
It didn’t matter what happened on GOG’s side—as long as IOI had no problems, everything was good!
“Matchmaking has indeed been much faster these past two days, but… where are all the promised newbies? My head is getting smashed in!”
“Ranked is completely unplayable. These placement matches are purely luck-based, depending on which side’s carry gets kills faster… What’s going on? It’s not even the end of the season, why are there so many boosters?”
“With some free time on my hands—former IOI beta tester, current GOG King rank player—streaming my climb from zero. Will climb until the event ends, however far I get. Welcome to watch!”
“I feel like IOI players have decent mechanics, but their game sense is a bit lacking. They’re obviously half a step slow on rotations, and they all like to farm—what’s up with that? It’s not so obvious in solo queue, but if you have a good friend to duo with, climbing is very simple.”
Seeing this, Pei Qian couldn’t help but shudder.
Goodness, these GOG players didn’t seem to come with good intentions!
This was actually completely foreseeable. After all, IOI required play time—players couldn’t just collect rewards and leave. Many GOG players had grown tired of always playing casual matches and would eventually consider playing ranked to climb.
That’s when problems arose.
Although there were subtle differences in the game mechanics between GOG and IOI, after several previous patches, many of IOI’s complex mechanics that differed from GOG had been simplified considerably, allowing many GOG players to adapt quickly.
Moreover, many veteran GOG players had played IOI before but had simply stopped playing at some point.
With so many high-ranked GOG players all flooding into IOI’s placement matches, competing with original IOI players in their “fish pond,” how could it not be chaotic?
Many weaker players had no choice but to see which side had more skilled players. Situations would often arise where “gods” were fighting on both sides—each team would have one or two carries who were farming smoothly, while everyone else could only tremble on the sidelines watching, serving as ATMs, giving players absolutely no enjoyment from the game.
Many IOI players’ expectations that a large batch of newbies would appear and improve the game environment never materialized.
Because this event simply wasn’t attractive enough to GOG’s new players!
Although the event was open to all players, only hardcore players with relatively long gaming hours were willing to invest the time and effort to pursue these rewards.
For many new or casual players, being on holiday and playing a couple of GOG matches with friends was good enough—fun was the most important thing, and they couldn’t be bothered with the hassle.
This led to most of those who went to IOI being GOG’s core players.
It wasn’t that there were absolutely no new players, just relatively fewer in number.
And GOG’s overall faster pace and more intense competitive atmosphere gave these GOG players a keener game sense and a more bloodthirsty game rhythm, turning IOI’s low-rank fish pond upside down and causing many low-rank IOI players to question their existence.
Pei Qian felt helpless—who could have imagined that GOG players would be so powerful?
Logically, when switching to a new game, there should be an adaptation period, right? During this period, they should be roughly on par with the original players in the game.
However, it was clear now that this wasn’t the case at all!
“Stay calm, stay calm.”
“This probably won’t be too big a problem, since IOI’s ranking system is similar to GOG’s. Players who rampage in the fish pond will see their hidden MMR rise especially quickly, and soon they’ll be matched with diamond or even higher-ranked opponents. The fish pond environment will gradually recover.”
Pei Qian comforted himself and continued reading.
“IOI is quite generous with this event—so generous that it almost seems fake.”
“It must be because they’re doing an event with GOG and don’t want to look bad? After all, GOG is giving out so many rewards—if IOI doesn’t offer anything in return, wouldn’t the contrast be too obvious?”
“But I’ve calculated it over and over, and we’re still missing one reward! The rewards for playing GOG are too garbage!”
“Didn’t they make up for it with other events?”
“Long Yu Group is so scheming. Won’t Tengda sue them? Others are putting in full effort into events, giving rewards, and directing players to your side, but you give such garbage rewards—obviously, you don’t want your own players to go over.”
“It’s just business behavior, nothing to criticize. Can only blame Tengda for being too honest.”
“Wait, that’s not right. I think other events are other events, and joint events are joint events. How can rewards be substituted? We should get everything!”
“I’ve discovered a good method! Actually, everyone can operate like this: first, register a GOG account, play a bit, find the event page, then link your IOI main account. This way, the system will judge you as an IOI player who has migrated to GOG, and your IOI main account can claim the generous rewards!”
“Holy crap? It really works! You’re a freaking genius!”
Pei Qian had been about to drink his coffee—it was almost at his lips—when he saw this post and put it back down.
There’s actually an operation like this?!
He hurriedly clicked on the post to study it carefully.
After reading a few replies, Pei Qian understood.
There was an annoying loophole in this rule!
Of course, when Dayark Group and Long Yu Group were drafting the detailed rules, they had guarded against this kind of “double-dipping” special situation. How players specifically obtained rewards depended on which game’s entry point they used.
For example, if you linked an IOI account from GOG, you would be viewed as primarily a GOG player. Regardless of whether the IOI account was new or old, rewards would be distributed according to the “GOG to IOI” rule.
This was to ensure that GOG players would have sufficient reason to stay after switching to IOI.
The same principle applied when linking a GOG account from IOI—rewards would be distributed according to the “IOI to GOG” rule. Since Dayark Group and Long Yu Group didn’t want IOI players wandering off, this reward was very low.
But in exchange, they had created very generous rewards in other events, specifically to eliminate any potential feelings of inequality among IOI players.
They thought these rules wouldn’t have any problems, but they hadn’t anticipated that the players’ attitude would be “I want it all”!