At the same time, Pei Qian, Ma Yang, and Chen Yufeng were also watching the ICL League broadcast on Rabbit Tail Livestream.
“Mr. Pei, yesterday the ICL League had fewer than 30,000 viewers, but today it’s already over 60,000. This shows that FV team’s influence and popularity are still quite high.”
“Yesterday, Zhao Xuming called me and was very dissatisfied with our livestream platform displaying real viewer numbers. He hoped we could help them fake the popularity metrics, but I firmly refused!”
“I believe that in the future, they will understand our good intentions.”
Pei Qian nodded slightly: “Hmm, you did the right thing.”
Although Pei Qian also hoped that Rabbit Tail Livestream would promote the ICL League well, this matter had its priorities.
In Pei Qian’s mind: maintaining Rabbit Tail Livestream’s unprofitability took priority over promoting the ICL League.
He had long established rules for Rabbit Tail Livestream, including that all data such as viewer counts and gifts must be real. This was a long-term consideration and a key condition to ensure that Rabbit Tail Livestream would never be profitable.
The ICL League needed promotion, but not at the expense of Rabbit Tail Livestream losing money. Chen Yufeng’s decision perfectly aligned with Pei Qian’s wishes.
The match was in full swing.
FV team and SUG team were battling back and forth, providing spectacular gameplay. After all, during the world championship, SUG team had been practice partners throughout, so their skill level had improved dramatically. The two teams knew each other well and both had mastered the current patch. Plus, since this was an exhibition match, everyone was playing more freely, so the entertainment value was excellent.
Various bullet comments in the livestream room were scrolling frantically, making it look very lively.
Except for the five-digit viewer count looking a bit dismal, everything else was perfect.
Pei Qian nodded with satisfaction. It seemed that the matter of buying exclusive broadcasting rights for the ICL League could be considered settled.
The money had been spent, and the ICL League broadcast had successfully started. Although it had brought some traffic to the Rabbit Tail Livestream platform, this traffic was far from enough to make Rabbit Tail Livestream profitable.
Chen Yufeng said, “Mr. Pei, according to our previous plan, the GPL League will also be broadcast on our platform this Saturday. All the preliminary preparations have been completed.”
Pei Qian: “Oh, alright.”
Actually, Pei Qian didn’t want to broadcast the GPL League because it was their own product and wouldn’t cost anything to obtain the broadcasting rights.
Not spending money but purely gaining traffic—if that were put on Rabbit Tail Livestream, wouldn’t that lead to profits?
But there was no choice. When previously signing the contract with Eric and Zhao Xuming, they had required that the GPL League must also be broadcast on Rabbit Tail Livestream.
The reason was simple: they were afraid Tenda might cause problems, so they hoped to bundle GPL together.
If the livestream platform ever experienced lag or crashes, GPL would also be affected. Eric and Zhao Xuming thought that this way, Mr. Pei wouldn’t try any tricks.
Although Pei Qian hadn’t planned to play any tricks, Eric and Zhao Xuming didn’t trust him, so they had to use this method to gain their trust.
Therefore, related terms were included in the contract.
Pei Qian had no choice. Since you can’t catch the wolf without sacrificing the lamb, let’s broadcast it.
Besides, other livestream platforms had already been broadcasting for so long that the audience interested in watching matches had basically been divided up among other platforms. GPL logging onto Rabbit Tail Livestream at this point shouldn’t bring too much traffic, right?
The work on Rabbit Tail Livestream’s side should be wrapping up. Pei Qian took out his phone and casually browsed the forums.
Undeniably, the discussion about the ICL League was quite high among the ioi player community.
Especially today, with the world champion FV team making an appearance and the exhibition match being so exciting, the forum activity was very high.
These posts included discussions about the matches, debates about the tier rankings of all the ICL League clubs, and talks about star players.
Suddenly, Pei Qian’s brow furrowed.
The titles of several hot posts seemed a bit off!
“ICS League Protests Fingertip Company’s Double Standards!”
“Stop Saying ICL Viewership Is Low—Exposing the Hidden Rules of Fake Numbers on Livestream Platforms!”
Both posts had high engagement. Pei Qian first clicked on the first one.
This post mainly conveyed discussions from overseas forums about Fingertip Company’s differentiated treatment of the ICS League and ICL League, which led to protests from ICS clubs and viewers.
Fingertip Company had already responded, saying they would lower the starting price for ICS League spots, essentially backing down.
The key was that this post also analyzed many details of this matter in a seemingly well-informed manner, concluding that: Tenda must be behind this!
GOG’s overseas league was also in preparation, deliberately offering a very low starting price for overseas club spots, forming a stark contrast with Fingertip Company’s approach. This was why ICS clubs were incited to protest, forcing Fingertip Company to back down…
Pei Qian read this with a puzzled expression.
What nonsense!
This had nothing to do with him; people shouldn’t randomly pin blame on him!
Pei Qian realized he now had a “blame-attracting constitution.” This clearly wasn’t his doing, yet both netizens and competitors were pinning it on him—ridiculous!
He didn’t take this news too seriously.
If Fingertip Company wanted to lower prices, let them. After all, GOG’s North American League starting price had already been reduced to 1 million, with other regions even lower. They weren’t making much money anymore, so it didn’t pose much of a threat to Pei Qian.
He then clicked on the second post to check.
“Recently, many people with bad intentions have been driving narratives on the forum, saying that ICL League’s first broadcast had fewer than 30,000 viewers, that the league is dying, that nobody’s watching. Many people are seriously discussing and agreeing with this, which I find laughable.”
“Do people really believe that the two to three million or tens of millions of ‘heat’ on other livestream platforms are genuine?”
“Let me explain: the hundreds of thousands of ‘heat’ on other livestream platforms are calculated through algorithms, and the backend can be arbitrarily adjusted. Actually, for streams with hundreds of thousands or millions of ‘heat,’ the real viewer count is only about 10,000 to 20,000 people!”
“If you make a quick comparison, you’ll notice that the bullet comment density in the ICL League’s livestream room is much higher than many other platforms’ streamers who supposedly have millions of ‘heat’.”
“This is because Rabbit Tail Livestream is Tenda’s product, and Rabbit Tail Livestream’s principle is ‘absolutely no fakery’! All the data in its livestream rooms is real! The ICL League and Rabbit Tail Livestream are actually a breath of fresh air in the entire livestreaming industry, yet they’re mistakenly thought to be ‘dying’—that’s ridiculous!”
There were several similar posts, all with good engagement.
These posts cited numerous sources and presented a wealth of data, including bullet comment density in various livestream rooms, fluctuations in popularity, etc., comparing them with Rabbit Tail Livestream’s data to strongly support their arguments.
Although no one knew the exact conversion ratio between ‘heat’ and actual viewer numbers on other livestream platforms, these posts provided solid evidence that all other platforms engaged in data falsification.
Combined with Tenda’s credibility backing, it completely proved that Rabbit Tail Livestream’s data was authentic!
These posts were quite popular, and it seemed that people were sharing them everywhere—Weibo, forums, and various other places were discussing this, sparking a wave of “condemning the hidden rules of fake numbers in livestream platforms”!
Netizens clearly resonated with this.
“Indeed, livestream platforms’ fake data is getting more and more outrageous! Hundreds of millions or billions of ‘heat’? Do they take us for fools? Is the entire country watching livestreams?”
“There are too many hidden rules behind the scenes. They boost ‘heat’ to promote streamers, suppress ‘heat’ to put down streamers, and have all sorts of contract gifts, burning money while finding ways to make streamers give money back…”
“It’s all business; the water is too deep.”
“The rich get their money back in full; the common people’s money gets split 30-70.”
“Indeed, criticizing ICL League’s viewer count makes no sense. Do people really think other platforms show real popularity? Maybe they don’t even have 30,000 viewers!”
“Stop the unfair criticism! Today, ICL League’s viewer count has surged to over 60,000! Looking at the bullet comment density, it completely outshines many streamers with supposedly millions of ‘heat’ on other platforms!”
“So Rabbit Tail Livestream is actually Mr. Pei’s livestream platform? Then the data must be real!”
“Ah, is Mr. Pei going to change the livestreaming industry again? I’m going to check out Rabbit Tail Livestream now!”
“Only after being fooled by these livestream platforms with fake data do we realize how difficult it is nowadays to see real numbers. No more words needed—support Rabbit Tail Livestream, support Mr. Pei!”
Evidently, under the vigorous promotion of these posts, Rabbit Tail Livestream established a second memory point in viewers’ minds: real data!
Once viewers accepted this, a result would emerge: viewers would use a different standard to evaluate Rabbit Tail Livestream’s numbers.
If a livestream room on other platforms had 50,000 ‘heat,’ viewers would think it was dying; if it had 1 million ‘heat,’ viewers would think it was okay; if it had 7-8 million ‘heat,’ viewers would think the room was popular but might also wonder if officials were deliberately boosting it with fake data.
But Rabbit Tail Livestream was different.
If a room had 1,000 viewers, viewers would think its popularity was decent; if it had tens of thousands of viewers, that would unquestionably be considered extremely popular!
The key here was trust.
If other livestream platforms claimed to show real data, viewers wouldn’t really believe them; but with Tenda Group’s longstanding credibility backing, most viewers would believe this point.
Moreover, when the entire livestreaming industry was competing to fake data and create false popularity, Rabbit Tail Livestream was like a breath of fresh air, leaving a deep impression!
Many people thus learned that Rabbit Tail Livestream was Tenda’s product and expressed their intention to check it out.
Pei Qian was dumbfounded.
What was going on?!
You should just discuss the ICL League properly—how did you end up promoting Rabbit Tail Livestream?!
Mysteriously giving Rabbit Tail Livestream free promotion? That works?
“Wait, why do these posts seem to have erupted all at once, and why did they gain popularity so quickly for no apparent reason…”
Pei Qian carefully studied the content of these several posts and the speed at which this topic had caught fire, and he mysteriously caught a familiar scent of paid posters.
Could it be… someone was up to something?