Team Leader Su and Zhang Yuan were chatting in the hall, while Huang Wang was giving the team members a tour.
“This is the massage room. People come regularly to give full-body massages to prevent neck and back problems.”
“Sometimes we come to the rooftop to enjoy the breeze and have a few drinks. But we can’t drink much, just a little bit.”
“This is our meeting room, mainly for analyzing tactics…”
Huang Wang casually introduced the facilities, while the H4 Club members were filled with envy and jealousy.
A damn massage room? Drinking on the rooftop?
These were things they had never even dreamed of!
Pang Ling stopped in front of the whiteboard in the meeting room, developing a strong interest in the training schedule posted there.
“You get up this early?”
“You go to bed this early?”
“And extra meals?”
“Two hours of fitness training every day???”
Pang Ling looked at Huang Wang, seemingly beginning to understand where his muscles came from.
This training schedule completely overturned Pang Ling’s understanding.
After touring the DGE Club, Pang Ling’s competitive mentality had completely vanished.
Not because he had become enlightened or had a revelation, but because he was too overwhelmed to feel competitive anymore!
Previously, the only thing that made Pang Ling proud was that the H4 Club was an established club with good conditions and a more professional setup.
Now, seeing DGE Club’s situation, he instantly felt that H4 Club was just a shabby operation.
They even had massage rooms and several extra meals daily to supplement nutrition!
It looked extremely professional, clearly a training schedule created by specialized nutrition experts!
As for some details in the training schedule, such as why they needed two hours of fitness training every day, Pang Ling didn’t quite understand.
But since it was a specially designed training schedule, there must be very profound reasons behind it.
Pang Ling silently recorded this training schedule.
Thinking about it now, losing the training matches wasn’t unfair.
We weren’t defeated by talent; we were defeated by science!
“Food’s ready, the takeout has arrived!” Zhang Yuan called from downstairs.
Huang Wang had more or less finished introducing the entire training base, and immediately called everyone down for lunch.
Pang Ling breathed a sigh of relief, silently thinking that at least they could score a point when it came to food.
Previously, H4 Club also ordered takeout, but in the past two weeks, the boss felt that always ordering takeout wasn’t good for the players’ health, so they had just hired a cooking auntie.
It seemed that the DGE Club was still at the stage of ordering takeout.
Looking at it this way, H4 Club seemed to be one step ahead, slightly superior.
However, when Pang Ling went downstairs and saw the neatly arranged food boxes in the dining room, as well as the exquisite portions and delicious-looking dishes inside, he realized a problem.
So even when ordering the same takeout, the difference could be this big…
After just one taste, Pang Ling felt there was no need to compete in the afternoon’s training match.
After being completely outclassed in every aspect, his mentality had completely collapsed!
…
…
July 23, Saturday.
The GOG and IOI competitions were held simultaneously!
The two competition venues were on opposite sides of the city, with more than half an hour’s drive between them. Both were rented medium-sized indoor venues.
Small venues weren’t impressive enough, while large venues were difficult to rent and took too long to prepare, so both sides coincidentally chose this compromise solution.
Although the venues were a compromise, the spending certainly wasn’t.
The venue facilities and promotions were certainly expensive, making everything look beautiful.
Both sides spent lavishly on promotion!
Especially IOI, which promoted the “International Invitational Tournament” angle, advertising aggressively through the game, websites, and various channels. Posters featuring domestic and foreign players were everywhere, generating extremely high attention.
GOG, lacking the appeal of international competition, naturally couldn’t capitalize on this aspect and could only rely on its massive player base.
In short, both sides had made thorough preparations, and now it was just a matter of seeing the results on the day of the competition.
At 1 PM, Pei Qian arrived punctually at the IOI International Invitational Tournament venue.
According to the schedule, four matches would be played today to determine the top four. Shangyang Games had cleverly arranged each match as a domestic team versus a foreign team, clearly intending to establish the concept of international competition from the start, attracting as many spectators as possible.
Tickets for both venues were sold very cheaply, almost like giving them away, since making money wasn’t the goal—it was all about gaining attention.
Pei Qian had bought a back-row ticket himself to supervise the event.
As for GOG’s situation, he could only observe through the livestream.
This time, both Tenda Games and Shangyang Games had arranged livestreams and provided ample promotion on streaming platforms.
Currently, the streaming industry is visibly heating up.
If streaming was still in its early stages two years ago, with little capital attention, recently, the industry’s data has been changing daily.
Moreover, most streaming platforms had followed AiLiDao’s lead and developed bullet screen comment features, further enhancing the viewing experience.
Currently, the two largest domestic streaming platforms, ZZ Stream and YaiYai Stream, have already shown signs of tension. As more streaming platforms entered the field, this tension would intensify.
Pei Qian did have the idea of using streaming as a way to burn money, but it was waiting for the right timing.
The main issue was that entering too early might accidentally lead to monopolizing the market with a first-mover advantage, which would be disastrous!
So, Pei Qian planned to wait for other streaming platforms to develop first, let the bullets fly for a while, and enter when the industry became a red ocean with basically no profit to be made. Wouldn’t that guarantee losses?
Pei Qian had arrived just on time; the venue was already packed, basically with no empty seats.
This was expected—if the seats weren’t filled, it would be a loss in terms of atmosphere. Even if they had to hire people to sit, they needed to fill the seats.
Pei Qian opened the livestream on his phone to check the difference in popularity between the two events.
Hmm… there didn’t seem to be much difference.
GOG’s competition had higher popularity, but IOI’s wasn’t bad either.
Pei Qian wasn’t sure if the platform was faking the numbers, but judging from the bullet screen comments, quite a few people were watching IOI’s international tournament.
“International competition” was indeed a major attraction.
Well, it seemed that hosting competitions was the right approach—IOI had hope for a comeback!
Pei Qian felt a bit smug; after all, this idea was his own.
The opening ceremony featured simple cosplay and song and dance performances, followed by team introductions, warm-ups, commentators’ banter, and then the official start.
The earlier segments weren’t too complicated because most people came to watch the competition. A little entertainment from song and dance performances was fine, but too much would lead to questioning comments.
Soon, the domestic and foreign teams began competing. The two commentators were passionate and very professional, and the live audience was very supportive, occasionally erupting in applause and cheers.
Pei Qian watched for a while, then silently took out his phone.
The most awkward part was that he couldn’t understand the game!
Having barely played IOI, and with IOI releasing new heroes quickly, he couldn’t recognize more than half the heroes in the match.
At the same time, Pei Qian was curious about the situation at the GOG venue, so he secretly checked on his phone.
“This is not betrayal or defection; my heart is still with IOI!”
“I just want to see GOG’s miserable failure.”
Pei Qian found GOG’s livestream room on his phone and clicked to enter.
The first match on both sides had already entered the most intense phase, with the situation changing rapidly and dense bullet screen comments.
However, seeing the content of these comments, Pei Qian was shocked.
This wasn’t right…
Why was nobody discussing the matches themselves, but instead frantically stirring up conflicts?
“GOG’s matches are still better to watch, they’re playing so brilliantly!”
“Yes, various operations, strategies, team coordination—they play very cohesively, completely different from high-ranked solo games. Is this the strength of professional teams?”
“Much better than IOI, which is just noobs pecking at each other!”
“The tactical level is completely on a different plane. I also checked IOI’s matches; they call it an international competition, but they’re playing like high-ranked solo queue players, completely scattered.”
“Exactly, I feel the viewing experience isn’t even as good as Slackin’ Internet Café’s tournament! The opening match at Slackin’ Internet Café’s Esports Living Room was much better to watch than this international tournament!”
“Let’s stick with GOG; the other side is just noobs pecking at each other, not interesting.”
Pei Qian sensed something was wrong and quickly opened IOI’s livestream room again.
Although it was odd to watch a livestream at the competition venue, Pei Qian didn’t care about that now.
However, the bullet screen comments here were even worse than GOG’s livestream room.
“What are they even playing… is this the level of foreign teams?”
“Noobs pecking at each other.”
“Are you playing a Silver tier promotion match here?”
“So boring, I’m out of here.”
“Is this it? Is this it? Is this it? Is this it?”
“What are you all talking about? I think it’s good to watch!”
“Haha, I feel sorry for you not having seen better. Come check out GOG’s competition and see what professional teams are like, what viewing experience means!”
Pei Qian was angry.
Where did all these troublemakers come from!?
Don’t be fooled, everyone!
But checking the room list on the streaming website, the viewership numbers were changing!
GOG’s audience was increasing, while IOI’s was decreasing.
Pei Qian instantly panicked.
Don’t do this, everyone; this is just the first BO3 of the first day. Watch a bit more before leaving!
“I must firmly hold my ground in IOI’s camp without wavering.”
“Huh? Teams on GOG’s side have chosen Ruan and Modisty?”
“No, I must control myself. I stand with IOI!”
“I’ll just take a look; that should be fine, right?”
“…”
“Strange, why does it feel like GOG’s level is higher, the matches more exciting…”
Pei Qian couldn’t resist and started watching GOG’s matches. As he watched, he discovered the problem.
Although most viewers were not high-ranked players, they could still easily tell whether a match was noobs pecking at each other or gods fighting, and whether the competitive level was high or not.
GOG and IOI were the same type of game, so they could naturally be compared.
Were the players’ fundamentals solid?
Were there exciting, extreme comeback plays?
How were the team tactics and overall coordination?
How many basic mistakes were made?
How good were the team fights to watch…
All of these could reveal differences in competitive levels.
Now, GOG’s competition was completely superior to IOI in both competitive level and viewing experience, and with GOG’s higher reputation, many people had switched sides halfway through.
“What’s going on here?”
Pei Qian scratched his head, completely puzzled.
Logically, the major established clubs had formed their GOG and IOI divisions around the same time, right?
Some clubs’ IOI divisions were even established earlier.
How could the difference be so large when they competed?