Pei Qian was quite concerned about IOI’s situation.
As GOG’s main global competitor, IOI’s actions directly determined whether Pei Qian could continue to burn more money on GOG, which was important.
Since Eric’s departure, the person in charge of IOI’s national server at Dyark Group and Finger Company had become a successor named Kratian, so the policies for promoting IOI would likely change as well.
Pei Qian was looking forward to Kratian bringing some new changes to IOI’s national server, creating some challenges for GOG in the domestic market, although this possibility wasn’t high.
Lin Wan handed over a report: “Mr. Pei, Kratian’s currently known measures for IOI’s national server are mainly these.”
“Compared to Eric, he has shifted the focus of his work to changes in the game content, which can be seen from the test server update plan.”
“The game map has been relatively reduced in size, denied minions also provide 70% experience and a small amount of economy to opponents, repeated deaths make kills worth less, ending killing sprees gives additional bounties, and some map resources have been enriched…”
“In addition, he seems to plan to change IOI’s national server into a low-price zone, with hero and skin prices potentially reduced to 1/2 to 1/3 of the international server pricing, depending on the situation. This is a feasible method that many game platforms have already preliminarily verified.”
“Furthermore, there’s news that Finger Company seems to be approaching some major domestic game companies, hoping for these companies to carry out the game’s localized promotion work. However, which company they will specifically cooperate with hasn’t been determined yet. I will continue to monitor this.”
Pei Qian flipped through the report Lin Wan handed over, his expression unchanged.
Logically, he should be overjoyed, because these measures all seemed to be moving in the right direction.
Previously, both Shangyang Games and Eric had used different methods to promote IOI’s national server, but neither succeeded. The root cause was still the game itself.
GOG was Tenda’s own game. During the promotion process, it could be modified promptly based on player feedback, and even implemented operations like soliciting hero design ideas from players.
But the authority to modify IOI lay with Finger Company, whose main target was the European and American markets. In the early stages, they weren’t directly impacted by GOG, so they thought IOI was perfect and were unwilling to accept modification suggestions submitted by Shangyang Games.
Therefore, GOG continued to evolve while IOI remained stagnant. The gap in gameplay between the two grew larger and larger. IOI’s players were stolen by GOG, but GOG’s players wouldn’t give IOI a second glance. Over time, the power balance between the two was no longer on the same level.
This time, the person in charge, Kratian, was a high-level executive at Finger Company with significant authority in game modifications. He was also someone who truly understood MOBA game design concepts.
Moreover, GOG had now entered overseas markets and was rapidly consuming IOI’s market share. Even if Finger Company was slow to react and arrogant, they should have some response by now.
What Kratian was doing was narrowing the gap between IOI and GOG at a fundamental level.
Modifying game mechanics to make IOI more in line with general players’ gaming habits to attract more players; changing IOI’s national server to a low-price zone so that IOI wouldn’t have too much of a price disadvantage compared to GOG; cooperating with major domestic companies to leverage their resources to promote the game, while also being able to launch more and more suitable local promotional strategies.
It’s hard to say whether these changes were right or wrong. After all, gameplay changes that please one group of people inevitably offend another group—it’s impossible to be perfect.
Each change carried a huge risk. Sometimes, certain changes have good intentions, but the final results are completely unexpected.
But in any case, these changes at least proved that Kratian and Finger Company had gradually recognized the root cause of IOI’s national server failure and had begun to take steps to salvage it.
Of course, Kratian was relatively restrained in making these changes, without overcorrecting all at once.
The game difficulty decreased in a limited way, without directly denying; instead, they reduced the benefits of denying.
Hero and skin prices weren’t immediately reduced to dirt cheap. Even if the national server was classified as a low-price zone, the prices weren’t as low as GOG’s, fully considering the feelings of players in other regions. If the effect was good, they could continue to lower prices.
Moreover, these changes were first implemented on the test server to test the waters and probe players’ reactions. Only if the feedback was good would they be truly applied to the official server.
After all, IOI was already a mature game, and any change was a risk that had to be approached with caution.
If it weren’t for the tremendous pressure from GOG, Finger Company definitely wouldn’t have made such risky moves.
In short, being able to recognize the gap between IOI and GOG in terms of game fundamentals and pricing, and resolving to make changes, should be considered good news for IOI’s national server. It was certainly more effective than the previous approach of simply burning money.
But Pei Qian didn’t feel very optimistic.
Because currently, GOG’s domestic market share had completely crushed IOI. Even if IOI made changes, would they necessarily have an immediate effect?
Pei Qian had no confidence in IOI, nor in his luck.
Lin Wan asked, “Mr. Pei, should we take some countermeasures? Nip the potential problems in the bud?”
Pei Qian quickly raised his hand to stop her: “No need!”
Don’t be silly, they’re finally making some moves, and we’re going to immediately snuff them out? Does that make sense?
Quickly give them some space to recover. It would be best if they became a tiger that turns on its keeper. Wait until IOI regains its vitality and develops, then everyone can happily burn money together.
Lin Wan nodded: “Alright, Mr. Pei. Then we’ll proceed with GOG’s overseas promotion work according to the original plan. I will continue to pay attention to IOI’s movements.”
—
Meanwhile, at the Human Resources Department.
“Tenda Group does not need any spiritual construction?”
“Don’t worry about what other departments do, just strictly follow Mr. Pei’s instructions in your department?”
“This…”
After hearing Hao Yun’s account of yesterday’s dinner event, Wu Bin fell into deep thought.
Yesterday, the department heads had dinner together. Wu Bin wasn’t a department head, so he didn’t attend.
But since Mr. Pei mentioned the Tenda Spirit during the dinner, and none of the department heads could figure out his true intentions, Hao Yun deliberately told Wu Bin about this after arriving at work today, asking him to help analyze it.
Although Mr. Pei said, “You don’t need to understand, you don’t need to know why, just firmly implement it,” how could these department heads not be curious?
Everything Mr. Pei did had a deeper meaning!
These department heads were all skilled at interpreting Mr. Pei’s intentions. How could they willingly give up interpreting and just be tools?
So, everyone conducted an in-depth analysis and interpretation of Mr. Pei’s words. They even analyzed and interpreted the deeper meaning behind the fact that “Mr. Pei thinks everyone doesn’t need to understand.”
As a result, they couldn’t figure it out.
The department heads were all very uncomfortable.
Behind Mr. Pei’s seemingly ordinary requests, there was likely a new grand strategy hidden. This grand strategy might affect the future development of all departments, yet everyone knew nothing about it. How could this be acceptable?
A strong desire for knowledge troubled the department heads, and Hao Yun was no exception.
Therefore, Hao Yun secretly shared this matter with Wu Bin.
After all, this wasn’t confidential information. Mr. Pei hadn’t requested secrecy, and Wu Bin was a core employee in the Human Resources Department with considerable experience who had made outstanding contributions. It was reasonable for him to know this information.
Wu Bin frowned and fell silent.
These days, Mr. Pei’s focus seemed to be concentrated on the Tenda Spirit!
First, he changed the Tenda Spirit test questions, adding an explanation section for the answers; then, at the department heads’ dinner, he asked all department heads to discuss their understanding of the Tenda Spirit; finally, he said Tenda didn’t need spiritual construction and departments shouldn’t influence each other…
There must be something behind this!
Wu Bin’s brain worked rapidly, analyzing Mr. Pei’s intentions through his profound understanding of the Tenda Spirit.
“First, start with the most unreasonable point: Mr. Pei said Tenda doesn’t need spiritual construction.”
“How could it not need spiritual construction? Other companies dare to make employees memorize a few empty slogans, while Tenda has such a great corporate spirit, but doesn’t promote it. Is that reasonable?”
“By promoting the Tenda Spirit, employee work efficiency can be improved, company development can be promoted, and more income can be gained while also contributing to society. What reason would Mr. Pei have to refuse such a good thing?”
“Shaping corporate culture and promoting company spirit is inherently correct. If Mr. Pei opposes it, it indicates that there’s a problem with the process, and the implementation level hasn’t been optimal!”
“Combining this with Mr. Pei’s previous modification of the Tenda Spirit Compatibility Test… I boldly speculate that our current interpretation of the Tenda Spirit must have some deviation that has displeased Mr. Pei!”
Hao Yun was startled: “What makes you say that?”
Wu Bin explained: “We all know that the questions in the Tenda Spirit Compatibility Test change randomly. Under Mr. Pei’s requirements, there’s actually no need to specifically modify it.”
“But Mr. Pei still took time out of his busy schedule to modify it, adding subjective explanations for each question.”
“This indicates that Mr. Pei is dissatisfied with the high pass rate of the Tenda Spirit Compatibility Test! He believes that some employees, although they chose the correct answers, don’t truly understand the Tenda Spirit and have taken shortcuts. Therefore, Mr. Pei added the subjective question section to find the root of the problem.”
Hao Yun’s expression became serious, and she nodded.
Indeed, this was a problem.
Currently, the elimination rate of the Tenda Spirit Compatibility Test was too low. The department heads were reluctant to let the employees they had worked hard to recruit be eliminated, so they would all provide some hints to help them pass the test more easily.
But this way, many people passed the test not because of their own understanding of the Tenda Spirit, but because of force-feeding by department heads.
Mr. Pei had realized this, which is why he required new employees to explain why they chose a particular option when taking the test.
This way, it seemed to make sense!
Hao Yun hurriedly asked: “Then how do you explain what Mr. Pei said at the dinner?”