At 5 PM, amid the thunderous applause and cheers from the live audience, the first exhibition match of the ICL league officially began!
The host, brimming with enthusiasm, greeted all spectators both in the venue and in the livestream, working hard to amplify the energy in the arena.
Eric and Zhao Xuming, present at the venue, both felt a sense of pride.
This was ioi’s own league—we finally have a league that can compete with GPL!
Undeniably, the atmosphere at the venue was quite electric. After all, the ICL league had hired fairly professional staff, and the audience consisted entirely of ioi’s loyal longtime fans, with a small portion specifically employed to lead the crowd’s reactions. Both the applause and cheers were perfectly timed.
Seeing the match smoothly complete the ban/pick phase and enter the game screen without any hitches, Zhao Xuming let out a sigh of relief. The heavy weight that had been hanging over his heart finally lifted.
He took out his phone and opened Rabbit Tail Streaming to check how the livestream was doing.
Logically, there shouldn’t be any problems.
As long as there were no issues at the venue and the signal transmitted to the livestream was good, what problems could the livestream have besides lag?
Zhao Xuming opened Rabbit Tail Streaming and quickly found the ICL league’s livestream on the homepage.
The promotional resources were indeed generous—there was a very prominent banner on the homepage, and they had even opened a dedicated ioi game section. Clicking into it led directly to the ICL league livestream. Everything looked fine from all angles.
Zhao Xuming felt much more at ease.
Although Mr. Pei was a competitor and had just stirred up trouble with ICS, we had already signed a contract!
In any case, Mr. Pei was a person with a strong sense of contractual spirit and would definitely honor the agreement.
However, after he opened the livestream and saw the viewer count, he froze completely.
27,985!
An oddly specific number that kept changing, sometimes increasing, sometimes decreasing.
Zhao Xuming thought he must have misread, perhaps missing a digit?
But he brought his face closer to the phone screen and examined it carefully. After a while, he confirmed that he hadn’t misread—it was indeed a five-digit number, with fewer than 30,000 viewers in total!
Zhao Xuming was dumbfounded. He looked at the barrage of comments scrolling across the screen—there were plenty of those?
Various comments scrolled by, and he could frequently see people sending small gifts!
Although the gifts weren’t many, this was after all a tournament livestream, and gift-senders were naturally few. The key was the density of the comments.
Judging from the comment density, there didn’t seem to be any major issues. After all, the livestream screen was only so big—with just a thousand active viewers, comments would continuously scroll; with ten thousand active viewers, comments would flood the screen; and with several tens of thousands of active viewers, the comment system would need to be filtered, otherwise it would affect normal viewing.
Given that the ICL league had been promoted for so long and many ioi players would be drawn in, the high density of comments was perfectly normal.
The key issue was: what was going on with the viewer count?
Less than 30,000 viewers was far too embarrassing!
Didn’t other streaming platforms casually attract millions or tens of millions of viewers?
Even a small streamer would be too embarrassed to greet people in public if they claimed to have only 30,000 viewers on their stream.
Zhao Xuming’s face immediately fell. Was this Mr. Pei’s trap all along?
All other promotional materials were fine, but they secretly restricted the livestream viewer count?
Obviously, viewers had also noticed this number, with many discussing it in the comments.
“Isn’t this an exclusive broadcast? And there are only 30,000 viewers in total?”
“So that means there are only 30,000 people worldwide watching the ICL league? Pfft, sorry, I couldn’t help laughing.”
“Alas, ioi is still dying, it can’t be saved.”
“Compared to GPL, this is far behind. Not watching anymore.”
Zhao Xuming was furious. Rabbit Tail Streaming had done something completely underhanded!
Without a doubt, this must have been Mr. Pei’s instructions!
Deliberately lowering the stream’s popularity to create the impression that ICL wasn’t popular—such malicious intent!
Eric had also noticed this and didn’t look pleased either.
He already had a kind of PTSD mentality toward Mr. Pei, constantly fearing being outmaneuvered in some way, so he remained vigilant.
Zhao Xuming immediately called Chen Yufeng.
Even if Mr. Pei was causing trouble, there was no need to worry—they had signed a contract!
Once such underhanded tactics were caught, Zhao Xuming could immediately demand that Rabbit Tail Streaming fix the issue, or else they could request to terminate the contract and end their cooperation.
Chen Yufeng’s voice soon came through the phone: “Hello? Mr. Zhao, you should have already seen the ICL livestream, right? Is there any problem?”
Zhao Xuming laughed coldly in his heart.
You have the nerve to ask me if there’s a problem? Isn’t that playing dumb?
Zhao Xuming: “Mr. Chen, what you’ve done is not right!”
“Why are you limiting the popularity of the ICL league broadcast?”
Chen Yufeng was taken aback: “Limiting popularity? No, we’re not! How could we do such a thing?”
Zhao Xuming became more displeased—how dare they deny it?
“Mr. Chen, how could there possibly be only twenty thousand viewers! Even an ordinary small streamer on other platforms gets more than this! How will viewers perceive the ICL league? That it has less attention than an ordinary streamer? That nobody is watching our league?”
Chen Yufeng chuckled and explained: “Mr. Zhao, you’ve misunderstood. This is the real number!”
“We absolutely have not limited the popularity, nor would we ever do so. The viewer count in Rabbit Tail Streaming is the real number, absolutely no fakery involved.”
“As for other streaming platforms…”
“Their numbers represent ‘heat,’ not actual viewers. A stream with three thousand viewers can show a heat of over a hundred thousand; a stream with twenty thousand viewers can show a heat of five or six hundred thousand.”
“So if we calculated according to other streaming platforms’ heat algorithms, the ICL league’s heat should be around one million or so.”
Zhao Xuming opened his mouth but was momentarily speechless.
If, as Chen Yufeng said, the stream’s heat could reach one million, and if officials tweaked the data a bit in the backend, they could show a peak of around two million. That would be comparable to GPL’s heat on some smaller streaming platforms.
In that case, everything would look perfectly fine.
But the key point was that from Chen Yufeng’s tone, Rabbit Tail Streaming seemed to have no intention of helping the ICL league manipulate its data!
Zhao Xuming was exasperated: “Mr. Chen, do I really need to spell this out for you?”
Chen Yufeng: “Spell what out?”
Zhao Xuming: “Manipulating the data! You’re in the streaming platform business—don’t tell me you don’t know about this? To make viewers think something is popular, shouldn’t you inflate the numbers a bit?”
“Right now the comment volume is fine, the discussion level is fine, the stream is smooth with no lag at all, but it’s just this popularity and viewer count…”
Chen Yufeng firmly refused: “Oh, so that’s what you mean, Mr. Zhao.”
“I’m afraid I must apologize. Mr. Pei emphasized very early on, when Rabbit Tail Streaming was just being established, that all our data must be authentic, with absolutely no fakery. So I’m sorry, but we cannot make an exception.”
Zhao Xuming felt somewhat bewildered: “Not even once?”
Chen Yufeng: “Once we do it once, the website’s credibility is gone. Even if we show real data later, it would be pointless. I hope you can understand, Mr. Zhao.”
Zhao Xuming was momentarily at a loss for words.
What a situation!
Chen Yufeng’s reasoning seemed sound—this was a principle that Rabbit Tail Streaming had upheld since its establishment, and it didn’t seem to be specifically targeting the ICL league.
But the problem was, which streaming platform doesn’t fake its numbers these days?
Without faking, the scene looks too pathetic!
This viewer count of less than 30,000 made Zhao Xuming extremely uncomfortable.
Zhao Xuming didn’t want to give up so easily: “But our contract stipulates that your side should cooperate with our promotional efforts, and this popularity…”
Before Zhao Xuming could finish, Chen Yufeng had already responded: “Mr. Zhao, our contract doesn’t stipulate that we should help you fake data! That surely can’t be considered part of normal operational promotion strategies, can it?”
“Look, we’ve done all the promotional work on our streaming platform, and the effects are there for all to see. The stream’s bandwidth is also problem-free, guaranteeing viewers a perfect watching experience.”
Zhao Xuming: “This…”
It seemed to be true—the contract didn’t mention anything about faking data!
Mainly because at the time, both Zhao Xuming and Eric thought that since Rabbit Tail Streaming had paid a hefty sum for the exclusive broadcasting rights to ICL, they would naturally do their utmost in promotion. After all, if ICL did well, it would also bring a lot of traffic to Rabbit Tail Streaming.
Faking data was a specialty of streaming platforms—how could they not do it?
But Rabbit Tail Streaming truly didn’t!
Zhao Xuming said: “But this way, the promotion of the ICL league will definitely be greatly affected, and the effect will be severely discounted!”
Chen Yufeng chuckled: “Rest assured, Mr. Zhao, the promotional work for the ICL league is in our hands, and there will absolutely be no problems!”
“Just observe patiently for a few more days, and the popularity will definitely continue to rise!”
Zhao Xuming hesitated, but with no further arguments, he could only very reluctantly hang up the phone.
Eric, seeing that Zhao Xuming had ended the call, asked: “What did they say?”
Zhao Xuming repeated Chen Yufeng’s words.
Eric also fell silent.
This was awkward.
Rabbit Tail Streaming was indeed completely following the contract, and they weren’t at fault. Naturally, Finger Corporation and Dragon Yu Group couldn’t directly terminate the contract.
Of course, they could also invoke the forced termination clause by paying the 7 million penalty fee.
But the problem was, it wasn’t worth it!
Currently, Rabbit Tail Streaming’s broadcasting and promotional work for the ICL league was quite satisfactory in all aspects, except for the one issue that they didn’t fake viewership numbers, making the real data look a bit disheartening.
But would they throw away 7 million just because of this one reason to terminate the contract with Rabbit Tail Streaming? Return the exclusive broadcasting fee? And then find another streaming platform to cooperate with?
Only someone with water in their brain would do that.
Both Zhao Xuming and Eric fell into a dilemma.
This clearly wasn’t a major problem, but it was like a small bug constantly crawling around in their minds.
After careful consideration, Eric said: “Let’s observe for a few more days. If the effect is truly poor and has a serious negative impact on ICL, then we’ll settle accounts with Mr. Pei!”