This time, the FV team’s championship skins were a bit strange.

For instance, the jungle player’s championship skin from last year was Storm Swordsman, but this year’s championship skin was Storm Swordsman-Void Lurker!

Storm Swordsman had a normal human appearance, wearing armor surging with storm energy and wielding a long sword, while Void Lurker looked more like a humanoid void insectoid with two front claws as weapons.

These two appearances were quite different with few comparable features, but they were forcibly combined.

The finished Storm Swordsman-Void Lurker skin kept Void Lurker’s original animation model, but covered it with Storm Swordsman’s armor. The original insectoid double claws were transformed into two short swords, while still maintaining the surging storm effects throughout the body.

Movement, attack animations, and skill animations all tried to preserve Void Lurker’s characteristics as much as possible, only making the appearance more similar to Storm Swordsman.

Not changing the animation model made sense, after all, players needed to recognize which hero it was.

Additionally, there was the recall animation: Storm Swordsman’s armor would shatter, the long sword would be thrown to the ground, and Void Lurker would emerge from within and disappear into the void.

The other four players’ skins followed the same pattern. This approach was actually quite common; IOI had previously released “Element Exchange” themed skins, which swapped elements between tamers and their pets, and the reception had been pretty good.

But after these new skins were released, it became clear that players had a completely different interpretation.

The players were too imaginative and completely misunderstood the intention!

Players speculated that these championship skins contained at least three layers of meaning.

First, this indicated that compared to Void Lurker, Storm Swordsman was actually the player’s true love, and choosing Void Lurker for the skin was only out of necessity. The officials had forcibly strengthened Void Lurker to the point that they could only use it in the finals. What else could they do?

But regardless, Storm Swordsman would forever be the hero of their hearts.

Second, Storm Swordsman was dead—armor shattered, sword thrown to the ground. Was he killed by Void Lurker? Of course not, he was killed by Finger Company. Finger Company had rendered Storm Swordsman useless with a single blow, leaving him no meaning to continue existing, forcibly replacing him with Void Lurker.

Finally, was Void Lurker the end? Perhaps this time it was Void Lurker emerging from Storm Swordsman’s body, but next time it would be another hero emerging from Void Lurker’s body. Finger Company’s balance adjustments nerfing Void Lurker already foreshadowed such an outcome.

In summary, this skin was reminding everyone of what Finger Company had done during the two World Championships. Every player had their own interpretation, and everything was understood without being explicitly stated.

Think about the image of FV team dominating with their favorite heroes in IOI’s first Global Finals.

Then think about FV team struggling to win the championship with heroes they had painstakingly practiced in IOI’s second Global Finals.

Behind all this was Finger Company’s despicable behind-the-scenes manipulation!

Pei Qian felt a mixture of emotions as he read the players’ discussions.

He wanted to defend Finger Company!

Could all these accusations really be placed on Finger Company? Not entirely. Some things might not have been Finger Company’s intention; they might have been due to objective limitations, or simply misunderstandings by the players.

But the problem now was that players had completely lost all trust in Finger Company!

This was the so-called “Tacitus Trap”: once the emperor becomes the object of people’s hatred, whether he does good deeds or bad deeds, they will equally arouse people’s disgust.

In other words, once an organization loses credibility, whether it tells the truth or lies, everyone will believe it’s lying; whether it does something out of good intentions or malice, everyone will think it’s out of malice.

Take this event for example—what would happen if GOG held the exact same event?

Nothing would happen. Everyone would happily spend money on the Lunar New Year skins, Valentine’s Day skins, and championship skins.

As for the championship skins, people definitely wouldn’t interpret them so maliciously, but would simply see them as a fun activity.

There was no way around it; this differential treatment was the result of their previously established reputations. Nothing could be done about it now.

In any case, the various comparisons between GOG and IOI’s New Year events made Pei Qian feel that something was very wrong.

“Wait, something’s not right. This ten million… why does it seem like I personally gave it to GOG?”

Pei Qian thought this New Year red envelope event looked familiar. Upon careful consideration, wasn’t this the ten million profit-sharing quota?

At the time, Pei Qian had asked each department to submit a report explaining how they would use the ten million profit-sharing quota. Only GOG didn’t submit an application, making it seem like they didn’t need the ten million.

So Pei Qian had forcibly allocated the money to them.

What he never expected was that they would use it like this!

Without GOG’s red envelope event, IOI’s Spring Festival event wouldn’t have been criticized so harshly. Once compared with GOG, IOI’s players immediately couldn’t stand it and began leaving in droves.

It could be said that GOG’s ten million had the effect of pouring oil on the fire!

But could Eric and Zhao Xuming be blamed for this? It seemed… they couldn’t be blamed either.

Pei Qian had pushed the ten million on them, what could they do with it? Organizing a Spring Festival event and giving out red envelopes seemed like a reasonable choice…

“What should I do, can IOI still hold on…?”

“Let me check Longyu Group’s official website. Guys, please don’t lose confidence, I’m counting on you to help me out…”

Pei Qian opened Longyu Games’ official website, but was stunned by what he saw on the homepage.

The large banners on the homepage were basically all games distributed by Longyu Group. IOI had always been in the first position, promoted as their flagship game.

However, now the most prominently featured game had changed!

Finger Company’s IOI had clearly been pushed to the back, and the first game had become “Bullet Hole 2”!

“What’s going on? They even removed IOI’s featured spot??”

“Abandoning them as soon as they’re down! Longyu Group is being too disloyal. Isn’t this kicking IOI when they’re down?”

“Too much! This deserves condemnation, absolute condemnation!”

“Hmm… wait, something’s not right.”

“They’re promoting ‘Bullet Hole 2’ now? That game is already finished?”

“I get a share of the profits from ‘Bullet Hole 2’… In that case, never mind. Please intensify your efforts!”

Pei Qian had initially wanted to speak up for IOI, after all, he had high hopes for it. If IOI couldn’t stop GOG, then GOG would truly dominate the MOBA scene, which was absolutely something Pei Qian didn’t want to see.

At that point, with GOG having no competitors left, they would make money even while sleeping!

Even if he wanted to burn money in a price war, there would be no opponents left!

Although the skins were cheap, there were so many players! And besides skin sales, various derivative industries including esports were also making money. It was a complex chemical reaction that was absolutely unbearable for Pei Qian.

Now it wasn’t just that IOI’s featured spot on the Longyu Games website had been replaced.

This showed Longyu Group’s attitude, which meant that the promotional resources allocated to IOI would naturally decrease!

Wasn’t this a catastrophic development?

But then Pei Qian realized, wait, Longyu Games was promoting “Bullet Hole 2,” and as the designer of “Bullet Hole 2,” he could get a 4% bonus from this game!

Of course, this 4% referred to 4% of Heavenly Fire Studio’s net profit from the game, but that was still considerable!

Initially, Pei Qian had developed “Bullet Hole 2” with the intention of losing money, mainly to test the waters. If he could summarize some experiences from failure, then Tengda might be able to use them.

But after learning that he would also receive a bonus share, Pei Qian had completely changed his mind.

If the game lost money, it would be Heavenly Fire Studio and Longyu Group’s loss, and Tengda wouldn’t share in the deficit. But if it made money, that would be real bonus income!

The key was that as a direct competitor to “Sea Fortress,” it might reduce “Sea Fortress’s” income, which was quite appealing.

“I hope it becomes a massive hit! The more popular, the better!”

“Although Tengda will also get 30% of the profits, I can bear it! For the bonus, I’m willing to spend a bit more brainpower thinking about how to spend this money!”

Pei Qian instantly forgot his previous displeasure and clicked on “Bullet Hole 2” to start playing.

“Min Jingchao, I’ve placed all my hopes on you. You’d better design this game well. If I can’t get a bonus, prepare for the VIP class of the suffering travel program!”

…

Meanwhile, in many FPS game player groups, news of “Bullet Hole 2’s” official launch was spreading rapidly.

In Chen Sha’s fan group, many people were also discussing it.

Chen Sha’s online name was “Broken Halberd Sunken Sand,” and he was a very experienced FPS game player with excellent skills. He was originally a well-known figure in the “Counter-Terrorism Plan” community.

When Heavenly Fire Studio was developing “Bullet Hole,” they had invited him as a player opinion leader to experience the game. Later, through Lin Wan’s connections, he had also made outstanding contributions to “Sea Fortress’s” promotion.

Of course, gradually he stopped playing “Counter-Terrorism Plan” and “Bullet Hole,” focusing instead on “Sea Fortress.”

Later, with the rise of live streaming, Chen Sha had also signed with Wolftooth Live and was now one of the top streamers in the “Sea Fortress” category.

Actually, Chen Sha had initially considered Rabbit Tail Live, but Wolftooth Live had offered him a big contract, and making money was more appealing.

His fan group was basically full of loyal FPS game players who played games together daily and chatted in the group.

Recently, everyone’s gaming time had noticeably decreased.

This was mainly because “Sea Fortress” as a game was indeed getting a bit old. After all, it was a game from ’09, and now it was ’13. Although the DLC and daily updates were good, with some new epic weapons, declining interest was inevitable.

But over the past couple of days, players in the group had clearly found a new topic of discussion.

As an old friend of Heavenly Fire Studio and Tengda Group, and as an experienced FPS game player, Chen Sha had participated in the internal testing of this new FPS project some time ago!