December 16th, Sunday.
Pei Qian woke up and, seeing the trending topics on various ranking lists, was completely dumbfounded.
“#SupportFVTeamSwitchToGOG#???”
“How did this become a trending topic?”
“This is ridiculous!”
After watching FV team’s match yesterday, Pei Qian had gone to bed without paying much attention to the forum discussions.
The only consolation from yesterday’s match was that FV team hadn’t mentioned “thanks to Mr. Pei” after winning the championship.
As for whether FV team won or lost, Pei Qian could accept either outcome—it wasn’t a big issue for him.
But when he casually checked his phone after waking up and saw this trending topic, Pei Qian completely lost his composure.
What was going on?
Why would people support FV team switching to GOG?
At first, Pei Qian thought this topic had been initiated by GOG players to stir up trouble and poach from IOI’s side.
But after clicking on the topic and reading the discussions, he realized he was wrong.
After yesterday’s match, GOG players were all enthusiastically discussing the exciting domestic showdown between the two Chinese teams in the Global Invitational. They hadn’t paid any immediate attention to FV team.
Only a few informants had come to GOG’s forums to congratulate Mr. Pei on securing another double championship for GOG and IOI, joining in the universal celebration.
The situation had first started to sour on IOI’s forums.
If FV team had lost, bringing up Fingertip Company’s version changes and secretly providing balance coaches to other teams would have seemed like sour grapes. But now that FV team had won, all the old and new grievances deserved a thorough discussion!
Because in esports, winners have the right to speak, and only winners can criticize with confidence.
FV team had proven they could win championships even when targeted by the version changes from the organizer, Fingertip Company. But this also meant they would face even more targeting next year.
So IOI players became unhappy, feeling that FV team deserved better. They initiated the topic hoping FV would switch to GOG, and as players, they would follow suit.
This topic was initially only hotly discussed within the IOI community, but when many GOG players saw it, they thought it was great! They welcomed it with open arms!
“You IOI players clearly made a wrong decision—wrong only in that you made it too late!
You should have switched to GOG’s embrace last year!”
So GOG players were naturally happy to fuel the heat of this topic. Overnight, #SupportFVTeamSwitchToGOG# became a trending topic, even surpassing the championship topics for both GOG and IOI’s world tournaments.
Even under FV team’s championship celebration post, the top comments were unanimously expressing sympathy for them and hoping they would switch to GOG soon.
Seeing all this, Pei Qian was stunned.
This was completely unexpected!
What if FV team really switched to GOG?
FV team was a two-time world champion in IOI with two sets of championship skins.
If they switched to GOG before their champion skins were even released, wouldn’t that be like rubbing Fingertip Company’s face in the dirt?
What should he do? Should he do something about it?
As FV team’s boss, regardless of what Pei Qian said—whether telling them to switch to GOG or stay with IOI—the FV team members would most likely listen.
But after some consideration, Pei Qian decided not to interfere.
If FV team wanted to switch to GOG, they could switch. If they didn’t want to, they didn’t have to.
This matter should be left to their own decision.
If FV team truly felt mistreated staying with IOI, Pei Qian didn’t have the heart to force them to stay.
Even if FV team really switched to GOG and brought over a batch of players, they would mostly be bringing IOI domestic server players, and there weren’t many of those left anyway.
So Pei Qian didn’t dwell on this issue any further.
Since both GOG and IOI world championships had concluded, this matter could be considered over. It was time to move on to worry about other things…
…
European time 2 PM, Chinese time 8 PM.
In the hotel where Fingertip Company staff were staying, Christian, Jin Yong, and several Fingertip Company executives were holding an emergency meeting.
Normally, Jin Yong shouldn’t be participating in a meeting at this level, but the problem at hand primarily concerned the domestic server.
After FV team won the championship yesterday, online discussions in China had exploded, but active player numbers on the domestic server had dropped!
Today, the operations team for IOI’s domestic server had sent a message saying that player activity on the day after the championship had plummeted compared to the same period previously!
This was happening despite IOI’s domestic server offering various benefits like half-price championship skins and bonus experience for playing games.
And today was Sunday—player numbers should have been higher.
For other regions, having the championship snatched away by FV team might dampen player enthusiasm, but why had the domestic server’s player activity also dropped? And even more severely than other regions?
This was completely unacceptable!
IOI’s domestic server didn’t have many players left to begin with. If this trend continued, it was questionable whether the server would have enough players to start games.
For single-player games, the number of active online players wouldn’t matter much since everyone plays independently. But in MOBA games, player experience depends entirely on the total player count. With fewer players, it becomes impossible to match opponents of similar skill levels. Lower-tier players get easily destroyed and crushed, which further accelerates the collapse of the entire pyramid structure from bottom to top!
If this continued, the domestic server might have to shut down in a few months.
Even if they stubbornly held on, it would be meaningless. If it took ten minutes to get into a match, there would effectively be no difference from shutting down the server.
This emergency meeting was called to address two main issues:
First, how to prevent further player loss from IOI’s domestic server?
Second, how to counter the negative online sentiment encouraging FV team to switch to GOG?
As the heads of IOI’s domestic server, Christian and Jin Yong naturally couldn’t escape being summoned to the meeting.
Jin Yong sat in a corner of the conference table, listening to Fingertip Company executives and Christian chattering in English, feeling somewhat dejected.
His English was decent, but he still felt uncomfortable in this setting.
He had thought that with the IOI world championship over, he could fly back tomorrow with no major tasks on the horizon.
Little did he expect that before he could fly away, the problems would fly in!
Even though he wasn’t in China, he still had to take the blame for issues with the IOI domestic server. It was absurd.
Jin Yong felt like he had the worst luck in eight lifetimes.
Previously, he had felt fortunate to be selected for IOI’s cooperation department, considering it was a priority project designated by Longyu Group’s leadership. But now he deeply realized it was a deathtrap!
Since joining this department, there had never been a moment of peace!
Serious, inconceivable problems kept appearing in the most unexpected places.
He couldn’t ignore them, yet he couldn’t solve them either!
Take this current issue—Jin Yong couldn’t figure out how to handle it no matter how hard he tried.
The only solution he could think of was for Fingertip Company to honestly admit defeat and then revert the nerfs to FV team’s heroes in the next version, pretending they were “seriously balancing data, not targeting FV team.”
But was that possible?
If Fingertip Company did this, they might win back some IOI domestic server players and retain FV team, but it could also trigger another series of losses.
Would foreign players and teams think they were submitting to pressure from domestic players? Would they see it as “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”? What if foreign players also threatened to quit the game?
If they buffed FV team’s favorite heroes again and FV secured a third consecutive championship next year, would teams from other regions still want to play?
Fingertip Company’s current strategy was to let IOI’s domestic server gradually die while focusing on the European market. They had finally managed to elevate CEM to within one step of the championship. If they reverted everything, wouldn’t that negate all their efforts?
The current situation was that IOI domestic server players felt they were being treated unfairly and didn’t want to play anymore. But European and American players, unable to win championships year after year and seeing no hope, were also unhappy.
If IOI were the only game in the world, players would just have to blame their own lack of skill.
But GOG was expanding strongly in European and American markets, establishing leagues there as well. European and American teams had progressed from being dominated last year to reaching the semifinals this year—significant improvement.
If neither game offered championships, what difference did it make to European players which one they played?
GOG led IOI in many aspects, and its momentum in recent months was clearly much stronger than IOI’s. By all metrics, it was more worth investing in and had better prospects.
So IOI found itself in a bizarre situation where everyone felt they should be catered to.
If they continued targeting FV team, domestic server players would object; if they reverted the changes, European and American players would object.
This fundamental contradiction couldn’t be resolved. The outcome had been predetermined from the moment Fingertip Company decided to nerf FV team’s heroes to help European and American teams win.
If CEM team had won the championship, they might have retained their European base. But now, they had alienated both sides.
Everyone discussed back and forth, proposing superficial solutions like making the championship skins more attractive, organizing more activities to promote FV team in China, or slightly reverting the nerfs to FV team’s heroes for the Spring Season before considering whether to nerf them again for the World Championship.
But everyone present clearly understood that these measures couldn’t fundamentally solve the problem. Even if they had some effect, it would likely be limited.
After a period of silence, Christian said, “Perhaps we should prepare for the worst-case scenario.”
“What should we do if the domestic server loses so many players that normal operations become impossible, and the value of the ICL league approaches collapse?”