The matches on both sides proceeded according to the normal schedule, one after another.

However, the more Pei Qian watched, the more he felt something was wrong.

The gap in popularity between the two sides was becoming increasingly obvious!

At the beginning, the IOI side still had quite a few spectators, but as the matches progressed, the audience dwindled, the excitement waned, and people gradually migrated to the GOG side!

Even Pei Qian himself couldn’t resist the urge to defect. Even after putting away his phone, he very much wanted to see how the situation was developing on the GOG side.

After forcing himself to watch several IOI matches, Pei Qian discovered a problem.

The standard of these matches wasn’t great!

On one hand, IOI’s game mechanics were outdated, and the heroes lacked appeal to the audience. On the other hand, the skill level of these teams was truly inconsistent, and the matches they played were not much different from high-ranked public games.

Although watchable, the teams’ coordination was poor, and they played not as a cohesive unit but like five random players.

If there weren’t matches on the GOG side, it might have been fine, but with both events happening simultaneously, the difference was glaringly obvious!

Most spectators already favored the GOG side and only came to watch IOI because of the “international competition” gimmick. After watching a few uninteresting matches, they quickly defected.

Once they defected, they never came back!

Moreover, there were traitors constantly jumping between the two livestream rooms, drawing large numbers of viewers away from the IOI stream.

On the streaming platforms, the contrast in popularity was becoming increasingly apparent, with one rising as the other fell.

What was even more outrageous was that Pei Qian discovered people in the venue were secretly leaving!

After all, the tickets were very cheap—half-sold, half-given away—so leaving early didn’t hurt much.

These people found the matches unwatchable and felt staying would be a waste of time, so they slipped away one after another.

Pei Qian was about to cough up blood.

Don’t leave! Stay and keep watching!

He wanted to shout this aloud, but he knew very well that no amount of shouting would help; players would vote with their feet.

Pei Qian let out a long sigh, leaned back in his seat, his emotions complex.

Although the competition would officially end tomorrow, from the current situation, it seemed the outcome was already sealed, with no hope for reversal.

What could he do now?

……

……

July 24th, Sunday.

Today, Pei Qian didn’t go to watch either the GOG or the IOI matches because the outcome was already determined. Going to watch would only be subjecting himself to further humiliation.

Last night, Pei Qian had spent a long time scrolling through forums, looking at players’ evaluations of these two competitions. As expected, there was no hope.

GOG had completely dominated IOI in terms of popularity!

To the extent that many players even started feeling sorry for IOI.

“Watching IOI’s viewership continuously dropping, I genuinely feel bad. The organizers must have spent a fortune on early promotion, but now all the players they attracted have turned into viewership for GOG!”

“Yes, I know examples of die-hard IOI fans switching to GOG…”

“Can’t be helped, GOG is just too strong. Mobile and PC versions are interconnected, the game mechanics are fun, and even the professional matches are more entertaining than IOI’s!”

“IOI is truly miserable.”

“Logically, when a successful foreign game enters the domestic market, with strong game quality, frequent updates, and generous operational activities, there’s no reason it shouldn’t catch on, right?”

“Yes, that would be the case if Tenda didn’t exist.”

“IOI’s domestic server didn’t make a single wrong move. If their opponent wasn’t GOG, they would have taken off long ago. Unfortunately, GOG is just too extraordinary with its crowdfunded game, internet café promotions, organized competitions… plus the initial cross-platform compatibility and season-end rewards, they have already seized the market first. Moreover, each of IOI’s offensive moves was perfectly countered. They’re just too strong!”

“Mr. Pei is a marketing genius.”

“Indeed, with Mr. Pei at the helm of GOG, IOI can’t win.”

“Wait, isn’t IOI also operated by Tenda? Isn’t Shangyang Games a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tenda?”

“Ah, don’t you understand favoritism? Don’t you understand the strategy of raising poisonous insects in a jar? Can’t you see which side Mr. Pei is on now?”

“Indeed, Mr. Pei favors GOG more—it’s his biological son.”

Reading these comments, Pei Qian felt exhausted.

Which side was he on?

Of course, he was on IOI’s side! Did that even need to be said?!

Yet, not only would the players not believe this, but even the people at Shangyang Games might not.

Pei Qian felt helpless. It seemed this venture had failed.

But looking on the bright side…

Did this mean IOI’s domestic server could now lie flat and operate at a loss?

Although Lin Wan was unlikely to leave Tenda to inherit her family business, after all this trouble, the domestic battle between GOG and IOI had been decided. Continuing to burn money on IOI—wouldn’t that money just go down the drain happily?

Pei Qian felt that one must adapt to circumstances.

Since IOI truly couldn’t be propped up, why not change his approach and turn it into a tool for losing money? That didn’t seem bad at all!

……

While pondering future countermeasures, Pei Qian arrived at the coffee shop to hear Qiu Hong’s experiences of failure.

Up to now, Qiu Hong had shared several lessons from his failures:

Chaotic project management.

Interference from the boss or other external forces.

Inability to discover talent.

Common sense bias and poor communication.

Disunity of voices within the development team.

Undeniably, these lessons from failure were Qiu Hong’s heartfelt words.

According to him, encountering any one of these would cause difficulties in project development; encountering two would mire the development work in a quagmire; encountering three would be like hell on earth.

But Pei Qian discovered that these fatal problems had somehow been miraculously solved within Tenda!

This was truly absurd.

It was like a race where others start from the starting line, but Pei Qian found himself already standing at the finish line.

The key problem was, he wanted to run backward!

In short, the situation was extremely awkward.

Among all the failure experiences, Pei Qian felt that only “disunity of voices within the development team” could potentially be utilized, but he had no idea how to exploit it.

He could only hope that Qiu Hong would share a more useful failure experience today.

Qiu Hong took a sip of coffee and observed “Ma Yang’s” expression: “Mr. Ma, judging by your expression, you seem to have mixed feelings.”

Pei Qian nodded: “Yes.”

This observation was indeed correct, except that the “joy” and “worry” were completely reversed.

Qiu Hong smiled: “Life is full of disappointments. Mr. Ma, you shouldn’t take it too much to heart.”

“Today, the failure experience I want to discuss is iteration.”

Pei Qian instantly perked up.

This seemed to be a failure experience he could directly utilize!

So-called iteration is essentially updating versions.

Like when many games update from 1.0 to 1.1, then to 2.0—these are all iterations.

Qiu Hong continued: “Mr. Ma, you might wonder, isn’t iteration a necessary factor for all successful projects? How could it lead to failure?”

“The key is whether the iteration has an accurate goal.”

“All failed iterations share one common point: no one knows what the ultimate form of this game or product should be, and they keep changing direction aimlessly, making alterations without a clear endpoint.”

“Requirements constantly change, and modifications never end.”

“This behavior means everyone is unclear about the product’s ultimate form. The result is often a project that veers further and further off course with each iteration. On the surface, the project seems to improve with each iteration, but in reality, it’s constantly deviating from the correct path until it becomes irrecoverable.”

“Many games are like this. The prototype was originally clear, but during development, they constantly wanted more features, so they kept iterating and adding new things, eventually turning it into a monstrosity that fits no category.”

“Especially when ‘erroneous iteration’ combines with ‘disunity of voices within the project’—that creates a super, super, super terrifying disaster!”

“The entire project falls into endless internal conflict, like a boat caught in a whirlpool. Even the best helmsman can’t steer it out; they can only watch as it slowly sinks, disintegrates, and becomes beyond salvation.”

Pei Qian’s eyes lit up involuntarily.

Good, the money wasn’t wasted!

Finally, he had learned a killer technique from Qiu Hong!

Previously, Tenda’s games had indeed gone through iterations and version updates, but the purpose of those updates had been very clear, which was why they had unfortunately succeeded.

But now, with Qiu Hong’s theory as guidance, Pei Qian suddenly felt like he had glimpsed the dawn of victory!

Make the voices within the project disunited, then force them to iterate, repeatedly scrapping and remaking version after version, upgrading iterations, and finally, before settlement, launch a misshapen product that satisfies no one.

Wouldn’t that be perfect?

“Thank you, Mr. Qiu!” Pei Qian’s eyes sparkled with genuine appreciation.

Qiu Hong was a bit taken aback and quickly said, “Mr. Ma, there’s no need for thanks. I’m just fulfilling a duty entrusted to me.”

“Besides, what I’m sharing are experiences of failure. If Mr. Ma wants to utilize them, you’ll need to think in reverse.”

Pei Qian smiled.

Think in reverse?

No, I can utilize these failure experiences directly!

Learning does have its benefits; otherwise, how could he have thought of such a method to lose money?

This money was well spent!

……

……

July 25th, Monday.

The third stage of the arms race between GOG and IOI finally concluded.

Yesterday afternoon, both sides determined their champions and awarded prize money and trophies.

However, who became champion wasn’t important in itself.

What was important was that after this competition, all players and clubs realized one fact: in China, IOI simply couldn’t compete!

For the foreseeable future, China would be GOG’s domain, and this competition had thoroughly consolidated GOG’s dominant position!

……

At DGE Esports Club.

The team members from H4 Club and DGE Club were waving goodbye to each other.

Meanwhile, Team Leader Su was having an in-depth discussion with Zhang Yuan about the future of the domestic esports industry.

Although H4 Club had settled for second place in yesterday’s finals, which was quite regrettable, for a team that had been repeatedly defeated and hadn’t held much hope, this was already quite a surprising achievement.