August 5th, Monday.

Pengcheng.

Hu Xiao sat at home, busy instructing his internet troll brothers about their new assignment.

As early as 8 AM, Hu Xiao began bombarding the group chat with messages.

“Time to work, time to work!”

“Is everyone at their workstations? Those who are ready, type ‘1’ so I can see.”

“Anyone who doesn’t respond within half an hour will be marked as late!”

At Hu Xiao’s command, the troll group chat was immediately flooded with “11111s,” clearly showing that these well-trained trolls were already in position.

Hu Xiao was very satisfied with this.

These trolls had been carefully trained by him, and each was highly disciplined. Although they all worked from home, their timing was very precise, even better than many office workers.

After all, when working from home, there was no need to rush for subways or buses—there was no excuse for being late.

Once almost everyone had checked in, Hu Xiao said in the group: “Everyone, stay sharp! Today’s task comes from one of our regular clients, a very generous patron. Although he’s using his previous discount allowance this time, everyone must still complete the task perfectly! Understand?”

The group was filled with another wave of “understood” messages.

Hu Xiao continued: “Details about this assignment have been sent to your emails, so check them. Simply put, we’re posting negative reviews for a game called ‘Tailored to Measure.'”

“Of course, we’re not just mindlessly giving one-star reviews—that would be too fake and obvious. We want to create a right-angled triangle or C-shaped distribution pattern, which will be more deceptive.”

“Everyone should follow their assigned roles and post different comments, but all comments must adhere to one principle: attack the game’s poor gameplay.”

“As for exactly how to attack it, you’re all experienced workers, so I don’t need to elaborate, right?”

The trolls in the group were all eager to begin.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got this!”

“Game reviews have their own specific templates—we’ll just follow those.”

“Whether it’s direct criticism, sophisticated mockery, or subtle disparagement disguised as praise, we know all these tricks!”

Hu Xiao was very pleased: “Great! Let’s prepare now while it’s still early.”

“As soon as this game launches, immediately start spreading these negative reviews. Don’t overlook any platform—official websites, forums, or social media platforms.”

“Those near Slackin’ Internet Café or Starbird Interactive Entertainment Experience Hall can go there to log in and post some negative reviews, which will appear more authentic.”

“There aren’t many players yet, so negative reviews will have the most genuine impact. Everyone hurry up and don’t dawdle.”

For both games and movies, posting negative reviews right at launch was clearly most effective.

At this point, only a minority of netizens had played the game or seen the movie, while the majority were uninformed onlookers who were most easily misled by trolls.

One troll raised a concern: “Won’t posting these negative reviews too early make our traces too obvious? Also, hitting too hard in the early stages might actually increase the game’s exposure.”

Hu Xiao replied: “That’s not a problem. The game developers aren’t stupid—they’ll definitely conduct large-scale promotional activities after the game launches. We’re just getting ahead of them, which will perfectly complement their promotional activities.”

“When players’ attention turns to this game, they’ll immediately see our negative reviews. The timing will be perfect.”

The trolls all expressed that they had learned a new trick and then went about their business.

According to the information provided by the client, “Tailored to Measure” was scheduled to launch at 10 AM today.

Hu Xiao didn’t understand why the game chose such an odd launch time as 10 AM on a Monday. But since Tardif Studio had chosen it, they must have had their reasons, and corresponding promotional resources would surely not be lacking.

…

12 PM.

After finishing lunch, Hu Xiao opened his web browser to check how his trolls had performed today.

However, after opening various forums to see netizens’ comments about “Tailored to Measure,” Hu Xiao suddenly realized something was wrong.

“Has Tardif Studio’s new game been released? I didn’t even know!”

“Yeah, I only found out today when I saw many people criticizing it online. Apparently, the new game ‘Tailored to Measure’ has been released, and it’s a game where you design your own clothes.”

“The official website also quietly updated the new version of the VR headset, which is now an 8K version. The specs are shocking, and so is the price.”

“Why has Tardif Studio become so low-key? There wasn’t any promotion for the game’s release. If it weren’t for the people criticizing it online, I wouldn’t even know they had released a new game.”

“These people’s talking points are so uniform, repeatedly saying the game’s gameplay is poor. Are they trolls?”

“Looks like it. Although their wording varies, they all focus on criticizing the gameplay, which is a bit strange. They’ve hit the mark, but they’re also way too fast. Most players don’t even know about this yet, let alone have experienced the game. Where did they get their information?”

“Maybe they’re beta testers?”

“I haven’t heard that this game had so many beta testers! And these comments never mentioned being beta testers. Logically, if they were truly beta testers, they would have stated their identity when commenting, right?”

“Most likely competitors making a preemptive strike, but they failed to coordinate properly with Tardif Studio’s end.”

“So they’ve been exposed?”

“So what’s this game actually like?”

“You see, the trolls can only criticize its gameplay, which means all other aspects must be perfect. And in my opinion, this game actually has good gameplay—it’s just different from conventional gameplay fun, unlike other games. It depends on the person. I suggest experiencing it yourself to find out!”

Looking at these netizen comments, Hu Xiao was dumbfounded.

He hurriedly contacted his client, but before he could figure out how to explain, the other side had already sent an angry inquiry.

“What’s going on?”

“I thought you were professional trolls who wouldn’t make such basic mistakes.”

“The game hasn’t even gained traction yet, and your flood of posts has already let the whole world know about it!”

From the messages sent by this customer, he seemed very angry.

Hu Xiao felt wronged but quickly explained: “It was an accident! Absolutely an accident!”

“We had planned everything well, intending to start our troll activities as soon as the game launched. Official developers usually invest in promotional resources to warm up when a game launches, with some lead time.”

“So under normal circumstances, our activities should have coincided with the official promotional resources. Just as the buzz began to rise, netizens would see our negative reviews, which wouldn’t appear too abrupt.”

“But we never expected Tardif Studio to play unfairly. They released the game without arranging any initial promotional resources!”

“How could we have anticipated that such a large game company would release a game without any promotion?”

After a lengthy explanation, Hu Xiao patiently waited for the other party’s response.

After a long while, the other party reluctantly replied with two words: “Fine then.”

Hu Xiao breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed his sincerity had moved the client, indicating that the situation could still be salvaged.

So he eagerly continued: “Don’t worry, you’re our regular client, and we’ll definitely guarantee the quality of our service!”

“How about this—to compensate for your loss, we’ll arrange for a somewhat influential game reviewer to publish a review about ‘Tailored to Measure,’ thoroughly discussing the gameplay problems of this game, free of charge. We guarantee you’ll be satisfied!”

The client remained silent for a moment before replying: “Do I need to pay extra?”

Hu Xiao quickly replied with a frantically head-shaking emoji: “Not at all! This is completely free, offered to compensate for our work error.”

The client immediately replied: “Alright, thank you.”

Hu Xiao finally breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t expected that his strategy of getting ahead would create such a blunder. He hurriedly went online to find a game reviewer he was familiar with, planning to pay them to write a negative review that would thoroughly criticize “Tailored to Measure” and salvage his trolls’ reputation in the client’s eyes.

…

Meanwhile, Pei Qian closed the chat interface, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

He hadn’t expected that the trolls would get ahead of schedule, completely missing the game’s buzz!

This couldn’t really be blamed on the trolls’ lack of professionalism. On the contrary, it was precisely because they were too professional that this blunder occurred.

Tardif Studio wasn’t against early promotion; they had just been so influenced by Pei Qian that they no longer cared about initial promotional activities.

In other words, they had become completely “Tenda-fied.”

Tenda Group’s promotional strategy was to have no strategy, no pattern—formlessness surpassing form. As long as they weren’t promoting in reverse, that was already Pei Qian being merciful!

As the company that most thoroughly implemented the Tenda spirit, Tardif Studio naturally adopted this marketing strategy as well.

At first, Pei Qian had to remind Lin Wan and Cai Jiadong not to do too much early promotion. Now, he didn’t need to remind them—Lin Wan and Cai Jiadong had grown accustomed to their projects inexplicably becoming popular.

Fortunately, there was a silver lining—the troll company had promised to provide a free high-quality negative review.

Such articles were usually written by somewhat famous game reviewers online. One such negative review was more effective than thousands of troll comments!

Pei Qian felt he had come out ahead!

Indeed, getting something for free was the most satisfying!

He wasn’t sure exactly how effective such a negative review would be, but having it was better than not having it. He hoped this game reviewer would grasp “Tailored to Measure’s” gameplay deficiencies and deliver a direct, powerful blow that would delay the game’s popularity by at least a few months.