At Slackin’ Internet Café.
Pei Qian sipped his coffee while browsing through recent news.
The sale of Cold Face Girl shares had yielded a huge profit, which deeply distressed Pei Qian. Where to spend this money had become a very troubling question for him.
“It seems like there hasn’t been any good news for a long time…”
Recently, problems have been frequent. He casually invested in the FV Club, and they immediately won the championship. Pei Qian personally attended the event, only to be made into a world-famous painting. Even Cold Face Girl brought in a huge profit, adding more money than he didn’t knew how to spend.
Painful!
Pei Qian felt deeply melancholic; even the coffee at Slackin’ Internet Café didn’t taste good anymore.
Suddenly, while browsing the web, his eyes lit up.
“Longyu Group released a special promotional video for IOI’s national server? Not bad, not bad, they’re finally taking some action.”
“This is good news. Do your thing, IOI!”
Pei Qian couldn’t help but feel delighted. Indeed, when it came to good news, it had to be IOI!
The Dayak Group, Finger Company, and Longyu Group—three major companies joining forces—were finally able to put some pressure on GOG.
Pei Qian immediately clicked on the promotional video to watch.
On the AiLiDao website, this promotional video had been up for two or three hours and was currently on the trending list, with various comments and messages rapidly increasing.
“Not bad, pretty cool!”
“It’s a bit similar to the GOG Global Invitational promotional video, but the Magic City scenery gets good reviews, and the domestic special gets good reviews too. Longyu Group is finally doing something right!”
“FV’s players seem to be in a different art style from the others; it’s hard to take your eyes off them!”
“The meaning is good, the lines are good. Longyu Group is very professional in making promotional videos. Not losing to Tenda is worth encouraging.”
Although some viewers felt that IOI’s promotional video seemed to imitate GOG’s World Championship promotional video, there was no need to be overly critical.
After all, with promotional videos, styles tend to be similar. As long as there were no obvious traces of plagiarism in actions, shots, or creative concepts, there was no need to nitpick.
Longyu Group hadn’t intended to plagiarize; they had just hired the same top-tier filming team and used a similar esports style. In terms of player actions, details, and lines, they had created original content based on IOI’s game itself, so the reviews were good.
Additionally, Longyu Group had hired some water armies, so the popularity of this promotional video was high, receiving positive reviews on various forums and websites.
Pei Qian couldn’t help but nod in deep appreciation.
Look, this was an exemplary case of good copying!
GOG’s Global Invitational promotional video had already provided the standard answer, and if IOI couldn’t even copy that, it would be too much.
The current situation was quite good. As long as Finger Company and Longyu Group put in a little more effort, followed in GOG’s footsteps, engaged in price wars, and practiced unfair competition, Pei Qian would be grateful.
“It seems that Dayak Group is sparing no expense to make the IOI World Championship a success this time. It should be worth looking forward to. Hopefully, it will steal all the thunder from GOG’s spring season.”
Pei Qian closed the promotional video with good wishes.
However, when he reflexively refreshed the page, he discovered a new update.
GOG had an official account on the AiLiDao website, which Pei Qian followed, and this new update was posted by GOG’s official account.
The video’s title was: GPL Spring Season Promotional Video!
Pei Qian was stunned and checked the posting time: 1 minute ago.
Seeing that IOI had released a domestic special World Championship promotional video, GOG immediately followed up by releasing their GPL Spring Season promotional video, specifically to compete with IOI.
This video had likely been completed recently but not released. Seeing that IOI had released a promotional video, they took the opportunity to steal the spotlight.
Pei Qian was speechless. What a fuss!
Would it hurt to give IOI a little attention?
Why were these people in the esports business division so petty?
Pei Qian hadn’t heard about filming for the GPL Spring Season promotional video recently, so he still held onto some wishful thinking. What if the GPL Spring Season promotional video wasn’t as good as IOI’s?
Once they were outdone, wouldn’t they be handing the spotlight to IOI?
With this mindset, Pei Qian opened the GPL Spring Season promotional video to watch.
This video was also about three minutes long, slightly longer than IOI’s promotional video.
The beginning of the video didn’t have any logos, but went straight to the main content, probably leaving the logos for the end.
…
On light yellow rice paper, a few strokes quickly sketched out the scene of an ancient battlefield.
On the desolate plain, mountains collapsed, riverbeds dried up, and the ground was full of cracks. Skeletons and armor piled up like mountains, with long spears standing defiantly, flying tattered flags.
Several ravens pecked at the pile of corpses, their eyes emitting an eerie light.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck from the distant sky, cleaving a crack in the heavy black clouds.
At the same time, a desolate, deep voiceover sounded.
“Heaven and earth in chaos, the gods have fallen.”
“On the eternal battlefield, light and darkness will engage in the final battle.”
“The agents walking in this cruel world will, with mortal bodies, uphold the glory of the gods!”
The images outlined by the lines on the light yellow rice paper suddenly began to change rapidly!
The piles of bones on the ground became animated. These undead, wearing broken armor and dragging incomplete bodies, their eyes flickering with two points of ghostly light, reached out to grab the spears beside them.
The camera quickly pulled back, and these undead shakily stood up, forming a sea of death.
However, at this moment, another lightning bolt flashed in the sky, but this time it was very close to the camera. The majestic heavenly authority penetrated the thick clouds, and a figure descended from the sky!
The camera looked up at the sky over the shoulder of the undead army. A dazzling, intense white light instantly enveloped the entire scene. The lines on the light yellow rice paper disappeared, replaced by a completely realistic CG scene.
Descending with the thunder was a standard-sized human figure. He was muscular, with powerful muscle lines. The H4 Club uniform on his body was stretched by his muscles, with the H4 team logo on his chest particularly eye-catching.
Pei Qian immediately recognized this person: H4 Club’s mid-laner, Huang Wang!
Huang Wang descended from the sky with the thunder, tearing through the clouds. During the descent, golden light began to appear on his body, and countless pieces of armor appeared out of thin air, completely enveloping him.
Golden light effects surrounded the golden armor. With the majestic authority of thunder, he slammed into the sea of undead on the ground like a cannonball, his right fist hitting the ground. The intense golden light instantly spread out, sweeping away the surrounding undead!
In the deep crater he had created, Huang Wang stood up and gazed into the distance.
The camera followed his silhouette into the distance. The various weapons sticking out of Huang Wang’s back like a thousand-armed Guanyin were particularly eye-catching, highlighting his identity as the deity Modister.
As the camera continued to pull back, more thunderbolts split the clouds, and one player after another entered the eternal battlefield, transforming into different heroes.
Jiang Huan transformed into the Wind Ink Scholar, Ruan, while other professional players transformed into characters from the game, such as the Traveler Bao Xu, the Inferno Duke, and others, massacring their way across the eternal battlefield.
Finally, the scene arrived at the desolate ancient temple at the center of the eternal battlefield.
Among the ruins at the outskirts, Huang Wang’s Modister armor receded, and he returned to his original form. He placed both hands on the sealed temple gates and pushed them open with force!
A beam of light shot into the long-sealed temple. The scene switched to an overhead view as the two enormous temple gates opened in response. Huang Wang, trailing a long shadow, entered the temple.
Although his figure was muscular, he still appeared insignificant in the massive temple.
On the eroded, broken steps, Huang Wang strode forward with his head held high, walking towards the huge throne at the center of the temple.
As he advanced, countless fire basins around him lit up one by one. A giant H4 Club logo instantly appeared above the throne. The broken steps became whole, and the entire temple regained its vitality.
But as the golden light swept through the entire temple, all the other entrances to the temple also opened wide. Each of the sixteen teams had one entrance. Apart from the main gate that Huang Wang had entered, representative players from each team also walked out from the other entrances.
These players all wore their respective club uniforms and carried signature weapons representing their heroes, seemingly preparing to charge towards the highest throne where Huang Wang was.
Another lightning bolt flashed, and the flags of all sixteen teams appeared on the thick stone pillars inside the temple, emitting different light effects, infusing the entire temple.
Finally, everyone gathered in front of the highest throne, looking at the huge GPL Spring Season trophy in front of it.
The video’s visuals and grand background music came to an abrupt end here. The logos of Tenda Group, GOG game, and GPL League appeared on a black screen.
…
After watching the GPL Spring Season promotional video, Pei Qian was stunned.
This was way too impressive!
Pei Qian had just watched IOI’s World Championship promotional video and thought it was already very cool, with various exterior shots and player footage transitions all done very maturely.
But after watching this GPL Spring Season promotional video, Pei Qian had only one feeling.
What was that previous promotional video, anyway?
It’s not a matter of not recognizing quality, but rather a matter of comparison.
Just looking at IOI’s promotional video, everything seemed fine. Although the lines were a bit awkward, they were voiced by the players themselves, so it was tolerable.
But after watching the GPL Spring Season promotional video, it immediately made IOI’s promotional video look like trash!
At first, Pei Qian was a bit puzzled about how they had filmed Huang Wang descending from the sky with golden armor automatically appearing as he transformed into Modister.
Upon closer inspection, he understood. This wasn’t filmed at all—it was a legitimate game CG!
The lines sketched on the light yellow rice paper at the beginning were hand-drawn by artists. The subsequent series of content, including the players wearing team uniforms and transforming into heroes, the undead, the eternal battlefield, that massive temple…
It was all game, CG!
GOG’s development department had specially created high-precision game models for the representative figures of each team, and then directly produced game CG based on these models for use as the GPL Spring Season promotional video!
Could location shooting compare to game CG?
Different production methods resulted in a complete dimensional superiority!
In the previous promotional video, IOI was still filming the scenery of Magic City and having players recite their voiceovers. GOG, on the other hand, directly CG-ified all team members, merging them with game characters.
The level of prestige was instantly separated by tens of thousands of miles.
In the video description, there was also a simple note.
“Various team-themed skins will be available for purchase after the GPL Spring Season begins. All proceeds from skin sales will be fully used for team operations. Please actively support your favorite teams!”
“The first Global Invitational Champion skin is still in production. Stay tuned!”