After arranging the Suffering Journey in the morning, Pei Qian had lunch, wrapped himself in a small blanket in his office for a nice nap, then woke up to catch up on some shows.
Before leaving work in the afternoon, he began to ponder the IOI World Finals.
From the current situation, the IOI World Finals seemed to be holding up well, without any major problems.
But due to a series of factors including streaming platforms and offline viewing events, the popularity of the IOI matches was still far below that of GOG.
Finger Company and Longyu Group apparently hadn’t found a good solution yet, or perhaps they were still brewing plans that hadn’t been put into action.
But if they didn’t do something soon, they clearly wouldn’t catch up in terms of popularity.
Because for esports competitions, although semifinals and finals have the highest popularity, that’s built on the continuous accumulation of popularity during the group stage.
If the popularity remained dismal during the earlier stages, it wouldn’t suddenly explode in the semifinals and finals.
Pei Qian wondered if he could help them somehow.
Although he couldn’t intervene in the specific arrangements of the IOI World Finals or openly give them money, he still had one card up his sleeve—the FV team!
FV team had also participated as a representative team from the ICL league, and judging from their performance in the group stage over the past few days, they still maintained good dominance and were strong contenders for the championship.
Of course, Finger Company had gone to great lengths to prevent FV team from winning consecutive championships. They had nerfed all the heroes that FV team excelled at and strengthened those that European and American teams were good at, making it difficult for FV team to reach last year’s level of not losing a single game.
But FV still maintained their dominance as a strong team through the players’ efforts, hero pool, and tactical execution.
This had actually made this year’s IOI World Finals more suspenseful.
Pei Qian decided to call Wu Yue, the owner of FV Club, to ask about the current situation of FV team.
Checking the time, it should be morning in Europe, and Wu Yue was probably already awake, so he sent a voice call request.
After a short while, Wu Yue answered.
“Mr. Pei?” Wu Yue was obviously surprised, not expecting Mr. Pei to call personally.
Pei Qian asked: “How is FV team doing over there in Europe?”
Wu Yue hurriedly replied: “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Pei. FV team’s logistical support here is completely fine, and the players are all energetic and in good condition!”
“Although the world championship patch nerfed many of the players’ signature heroes and we’re still adjusting, please rest assured, Mr. Pei, the players are adapting quickly, and we have a dedicated data analysis team working day and night researching IOI’s new version.”
“This time, we’ll try our best to bring the IOI World Finals trophy back home again!”
Pei Qian was silent for a moment: “Alright.”
Although FV team winning another championship would definitely increase the club’s value again and earn who knows how much money, firstly, Pei Qian couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to, and secondly, winning a world championship was also about bringing glory to their country. So Pei Qian had nothing more to say—it was up to FV team’s own performance!
“Don’t put too much pressure on the players. Win if you can, and it’s fine if you can’t. In esports, winning and losing are both common.”
“Don’t force yourselves to set higher goals just because you were champions last year. Maintain a relaxed attitude.”
Wu Yue quickly said: “Yes, Mr. Pei, I understand!”
Pei Qian thought to himself, “You understand my ass.”
Anyway, let’s not dwell on this—it’s not the main issue.
Pei Qian decided to get to the point: “The main reason I’m calling is to arrange a task for FV team.”
“Try to create some entertaining moments before, during, and after the matches—stir things up a bit.”
“Of course, just do it casually. There’s no hard target.”
Upon hearing about creating entertainment, Wu Yue immediately perked up: “Mr. Pei, we were planning to do this even without you telling us!”
“After all, we did it last year and the effect was pretty good. Creating entertainment is a fine tradition of our FV team—how could we abandon it?”
“It’s just that this year’s world championship patch has changed significantly, and everyone in our club is preparing for the matches, so we’ve temporarily put aside the entertainment plans.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Pei. Now that the group stage has been going on for a while, we should be able to free up some time. We will definitely continue to carry forward the tradition of creating entertainment! Continue to maintain FV team’s villainous persona!”
Pei Qian nodded: “Good, then I can rest easy.”
During last year’s IOI World Finals, FV team had gone wild with their antics, bringing a lot of attention to the tournament.
Although FV team had taken most of that attention after winning the championship, that was last year.
This year, Finger Company had targeted FV team with all their might. With such massive version changes and several veteran European and American teams receiving epic buffs, FV team’s chances of winning consecutive championships had greatly decreased.
So, Pei Qian’s main purpose in asking FV team to continue their entertaining antics was to generate buzz for the IOI World Finals, preventing it from being completely overshadowed by the GOG Global Invitational.
As long as FV team didn’t win the championship in the end, and it went to a European or American team instead, the attention would shift to those teams, greatly helping IOI expand in the European and American markets.
Then they could continue competing with IOI to burn money in those markets—wouldn’t that be wonderful?
As for how exactly to create entertainment, Pei Qian wouldn’t interfere, because FV team had already tried it last year. They were familiar with the routine, and the effect had been excellent—they were trustworthy.
Currently, the group stages of both tournaments were coming to an end, and the knockout stages were about to begin. Now was the perfect time for some entertaining antics.
As for how effective these antics would be, they would see this weekend!
…
…
November 22nd, Thursday.
Approaching noon, Qiao Liang was still sound asleep in bed.
Mainly because he had been watching matches and playing games late last night, staying up way too late. Today the weather was nice, the sunlight was just right, and he was sleeping quite soundly.
Suddenly, the phone by his bed vibrated, showing a message notification.
Qiao Liang opened his sleepy eyes and glanced at it: “Prize information?”
“What kind of scammer is this? So boring.”
Seeing it was a prize notification, Qiao Liang didn’t even look carefully before tossing the phone aside and continuing to sleep.
But he couldn’t fall back asleep because more chat messages kept coming in every few minutes.
“Who is this! What’s with sending me messages early in the morning when people are trying to sleep?”
Qiao Liang was annoyed. He picked up his phone to take a look and found that it wasn’t just one person sending messages, but several friends.
“Amazing, Old Qiao, you’re so lucky! You even won this?”
“Let me touch you for some luck!”
“You must record everything when you go there, and it would be even better if you can livestream. If you don’t have the equipment, go buy it now. I recommend something waterproof that you can hang on your body, to show a first-person perspective!”
These messages left Qiao Liang confused.
“What’s going on?”
“What prize did I win?”
“Wait, could that prize notification earlier be real?”
Qiao Liang quickly opened the text message and followed the link to the official website of the Suffering Journey, where he saw the latest announcement.
Tenda Group had conducted a weighted lucky draw among all active players, and Qiao Liang’s name was prominently listed!
A total of 3,000 people had been drawn in this lottery. After ranking by factors such as reputation and contribution, Qiao Liang and Ruan Guangjian were ranked first and second.
Although 3,000 spots seemed like a lot, Tenda games had a massive player base!
If calculated strictly, the winning probability wasn’t much different from a lottery.
Of course, the officials had clearly stated that there were weights involved, with players who had made greater contributions having a higher chance of being selected.
The ranking after being selected was based on contribution value. So Qiao Liang being ranked first didn’t mean he was the first to be drawn, but rather that after the draw, the list was ranked by contribution level, and he was first, meaning he had priority to participate in the Suffering Journey.
But players wouldn’t be dissatisfied with this, since the lottery was free—purely a benefit. Giving these outstanding players some probabilistic advantage was acceptable.
When “Sea Fortress” had drawn for epic weapons, the rules were similar, and players had generally accepted it.
Moreover, the prize itself wasn’t all that enticing…
Qiao Liang was initially overjoyed, but then deflated when he saw the specific reward.
He was overjoyed because after being unlucky for so many years, he had finally gotten lucky once, which was worth celebrating. At the same time, his high ranking confirmed that his contribution to Tenda games was indeed enormous, living up to his identity as a core player.
But… why was the prize a free experience of the Suffering Journey?
The previous promotional video of the Suffering Journey was still fresh in Qiao Liang’s memory. He didn’t want to go at all, and the “Real Estate Agent Simulator” was about to be released at the end of the month—he still had games to play!
So, Qiao Liang’s first reaction was to refuse and give this opportunity to someone who needed it more.
Opening his fan group, he found it was indeed in an uproar, with everyone discussing this matter.
There were even many fans looking forward to Qiao Liang’s livestream while suffering, eager for him to depart immediately.
Qiao Liang hurriedly posted in the group: “Everyone, stop talking about it. I don’t plan to go at all!”
“I’m going to post on Weibo right now, announcing my withdrawal from this activity, letting the spot go to the next person!”
However, the fans in the group immediately protested.
“Not going? How can you not go?”
“Damn, Old Qiao, have you heard the saying ‘Those who refuse what heaven offers will suffer the consequences’? You finally had a stroke of good luck and won, but you’re not going? Then good luck will never favor you again! You’ll be eating instant noodles without the seasoning packet!”
“How can you not go? I won’t allow it first of all—you must go!”
“That’s right, even if you don’t post videos for two months, it’s fine, we forgive you!”
“Livestream on site, then make a video when you get back. Wouldn’t you enjoy all that attention? You’ve always been using the excuse of not having content, not making videos. Now content has come knocking on your door, and you’re refusing? I see now, you just want to be lazy! You fraud!”