September 10th, Saturday.
The morning featured Manager Guan’s routine meeting, but there wasn’t much noteworthy new information this time.
Since He An posted that long Weibo explaining the deeper meaning of “Struggle,” both the game’s reputation and sales had entered a period of rapid growth.
After “Struggle” was crowned a masterpiece, content creators on AiLiDao all started streaming gameplay commentaries. Although due to time constraints, most only updated one or two episodes, the influence of major creators with their large fan bases was tremendous, quickly climbing to the website’s homepage and garnering millions of views.
While many viewers just watched online, plenty also went on to purchase the game.
Those who bought the game had different attitudes.
Some felt that although they had watched gameplay, playing the game themselves would provide a better experience.
Others thought that playing wasn’t important, but such a classic game must be added to their game library for collection purposes.
Still others believed that every choice a person makes is a vote for the world they prefer. If you like a game, a movie, or a book, you should support it with real money. As more people provide support, more such works will be created.
If you think something is good but don’t support it, then don’t complain when such things become rarer in the future.
Similarly, if you think something is good and you support it, helping such good products become more common, the credit belongs to all supporters. Even simply spreading the word counts as doing your part, however small.
Besides this, the official gaming platform was also promoting “Struggle” with full effort.
Hu Xianbin and his team were busy preparing the English version for overseas release.
Since the game itself had a foreign setting, was in English, and featured foreign characters, it should have good acceptance among overseas players.
Of course, before its actual launch, nobody knew whether foreign players would like this theme, or whether they could understand the deeper meaning without analysis.
But there was no harm in trying, and each additional copy sold was a plus.
If “Beautiful Tomorrow” could succeed overseas, “Struggle” certainly had a chance too.
Regarding all this, Pei Qian had no way to intervene.
It couldn’t be helped!
Players were determined to buy it, and officials were determined to promote it. What could he do?
If the game had bombed in sales and reputation domestically, Pei Qian could have persuaded Hu Xianbin not to release an overseas version, simply acknowledging the game’s failure. But now that the game was successful domestically, and Hu Xianbin wanted to try an overseas version, Pei Qian really had no reason to object…
This was very awkward.
Pei Qian now felt that he had fallen into a kind of reverse Tacitus Trap.
The so-called Tacitus Trap refers to what Tacitus said when evaluating a Roman emperor: once an emperor becomes an object of hatred, whether he does good or bad, it will provoke people’s disgust.
What Pei Qian faced was a kind of reverse Tacitus Trap: once Tenda became a company everyone loved, whether they did good or bad, it would provoke people’s affection…
Of course, Tenda couldn’t do anything truly bad because the system imposed constraints. They couldn’t cut corners or pass off inferior products as good ones. They had to ensure quality, and within the range, matching that quality, prices could fluctuate.
So, Pei Qian could only think of some clever tricks to dissuade people as much as possible, but under this reverse Tacitus Trap effect, people interpreted these tricks as having a deeper meaning…
This was very exhausting.
…
After the meeting, Pei Qian immediately rushed to Yuanda Paradise in the city center, because today was the official opening day of the first GOG Global Invitational Tournament!
Previously, Pei Qian had been so troubled by “Struggle” that he hadn’t had time to check the venue after it was set up.
But whether he looked or not didn’t matter. After all, this competition was mainly meant to burn money, and as long as the progress was guaranteed, that was enough for Pei Qian.
Before arriving at the competition venue, Pei Qian checked the match schedule sent by Wang Xiaobin on his phone.
This tournament featured 16 teams in total, 8 domestic teams and 8 foreign teams.
This ratio wasn’t very scientific, but since the preparation was rushed, this was the best they could do.
The foreign teams selected were all veteran esports organizations. These teams had more financial resources, more scientific management, and stronger players.
They didn’t invite weaker teams, as the matches might not be entertaining.
Foreign clubs were invited mainly to ensure the tournament would receive attention globally, as most players would primarily support teams from their own countries or regions.
Domestic teams made up half the total, mainly to ensure the entertainment value of the competition.
To put it simply, domestic teams were responsible for creating interesting moments, while foreign teams were there to make up the numbers.
Since the number of teams had doubled compared to previous competitions, the duration of the tournament would naturally be extended accordingly.
September 10th to 13th would be the first round of the group stages.
September 15th to 18th would be the second round of the group stages.
September 20th to 21st would be the quarterfinals;
September 23rd to 25th would be the semifinals, third-place match, and finals.
From the quarterfinals onwards, all matches would be best-of-five.
The entire tournament could be completed in just over two weeks, covering three weekends, with one day of rest between most rounds of matches.
As for why it was so rushed, it was because Pei Qian had to resolve the prize money issue before September 30th.
If the tournament dragged into the next month, how would the prize money be handled? Would the losses still count for this cycle?
After the schedule was announced, most players were quite satisfied.
Sixteen consecutive days, with only the 14th, 19th, and 22nd as rest days—high-intensity entertainment all at once!
Of course, if the tournament grew to a massive scale in the future, with semifinals and finals changing cities and venues, it would be normal for a week to separate the semifinals and finals. This would maintain the topic’s heat while ensuring matches were scheduled for weekends to maximize attendance.
But for viewers, waiting a week between matches would be quite painful.
In short, both Pei Qian and the players were quite satisfied with this schedule.
After about fifteen minutes, they arrived at the tournament venue.
Yuanda Paradise was the second-largest shopping mall in Jingzhou after Universal Street, and unlike Universal Street, it had many large multipurpose halls capable of hosting major events.
They had rented the largest multipurpose hall at Yuanda Paradise, occupying the entire top floor, with a daily rental fee of 30,000 yuan. Although cheaper than similar venues in first-tier cities, in Jingzhou, this price made most companies hesitate.
This top-floor multipurpose hall covered 4,500 square meters, was 12 meters high, and could accommodate up to 1,800 people. Yuanda Paradise itself was located in Jingzhou’s most prosperous area, with a subway station directly connected to the basement, making transportation convenient. All things considered, this was the most suitable venue for the competition.
The main decoration work for the venue focused on the main stage, preparations for which had begun more than a month ago and were now complete.
Pei Qian got out of the car at the square outside Yuanda Paradise and looked up to see a giant promotional poster hanging on the building.
It featured several iconic GOG heroes and the text “GOG First Global Invitational Tournament.” Of course, among these heroes were the deeply popular characters like Modiste and Ruan.
Pei Qian looked at Modiste on the poster with some resignation, feeling that this joke would never end.
As GOG became popular worldwide, Modiste’s image would probably be seen everywhere.
From the entrance all the way to the hall, the entire route was marked with related elements as guides, including team banners and large original artwork of various heroes. Audiences could follow these elements to reach the competition venue and enter with their tickets.
The ticket prices for this event were very low, with even the finals day ticket not exceeding 100 yuan. After all, Pei Qian’s main purpose was to spend money, so the lower the ticket prices, the better.
Of course, measures against scalpers were still necessary, as lower ticket prices made them more likely to be targeted by scalpers. With the TPDb website and Tenda account data, scalpers could be filtered out to the maximum extent.
At the same time, all tickets were registered with real names and could not be resold. If someone couldn’t attend, they could return their ticket, allowing others to purchase it through official channels. Private transactions were not allowed.
Pei Qian followed the crowd entering the venue and sat very inconspicuously in the back row, ready to observe the GOG Global Invitational Tournament.
However, this time, Pei Qian’s mood was relatively relaxed.
Because he didn’t have any expectations for this competition. Whether it succeeded or failed seemed irrelevant, as it wouldn’t affect the current settlement period anyway.
The structure of the main stage reminded people of the layout of Slackin’ Internet Café 3.0 Esports Life Hall.
Xiao Peng had accumulated valuable experience running tournaments at the Esports Life Hall, which could be applied to this Global Invitational.
Above the main stage was a super large screen for displaying the game, with two long strip screens on both sides showing the teams’ heroes and lineups.
There was also a small screen in front of each player to capture their expressions.
As the competition hadn’t officially started yet, Pei Qian took out his phone to check the situation on various platforms.
Domestic streaming platforms had already opened dedicated channels for the GOG Global Invitational. Whether it was Yiyi Live or ZZ Live, several large-scale streaming platforms showed that the GOG Global Invitational’s popularity had already exploded.
GOG had already held a domestic team invitational tournament before, and ZZ Live had organized a meme competition, giving the game extremely high popularity in the entire streaming circle. Now, with the Global Invitational starting, just a little promotion brought in massive audiences.
After all, this was a grand celebration.
Additionally, Shangyang Games had already contacted foreign streaming platforms in advance to broadcast the Global Invitational worldwide.
Although not as high as domestically, the overseas popularity was still considerable.
On one hand, GOG’s promotional campaign overseas had fully unfolded. After the release of Multi-face, the game had entered foreign players’ field of vision, with both PC and mobile players becoming familiar with GOG. On the other hand, eight veteran foreign clubs participating in this Global Invitational naturally sparked discussions in overseas esports circles.
Furthermore, Shangyang Games had specially produced a promotional video for the GOG First Global Invitational Tournament.
In the promotional video, Lin Wan appeared as Shangyang Games’ director and the person in charge of GOG’s overseas operations. Her fluent English and confident demeanor won many fans for GOG.
“The GOG Global Invitational is the grandest GOG event to date and will become the grandest esports event. Professional players from around the world, a total of sixteen teams, will gather in Jingzhou to compete for the highest esports prize money in history.”
“Tenda’s motto has always been to go all out for perfection. We have invested massive funds in this Global Invitational to demonstrate our determination to promote esports activities and build an esports ecosystem.”
“Here, I promise to GOG players worldwide that in the future, we will strive to make GOG the strongest electronic sports game. Please witness this journey with us!”
Lin Wan’s expression in the video was natural and full of confidence.
But foreign netizens all understood the deeper meaning behind these words.
This was a declaration of war against IOI!