On the car ride back, Pei Qian was deeply shocked.
Although he had prepared himself for the ICL League broadcasting rights distribution to make money, he never expected it would make so much!
The money he had spent had grown legs and run back to him, even bringing interest along—who could handle this?
Pei Qian considered where he should spend this money.
Currently, there was still a long time until settlement, so spending it wouldn’t be too difficult, but to prevent the same money from growing legs and running back again, he needed to think it through carefully.
Pei Qian’s first thought was to follow the principle of “whoever earns money should spend it,” using the money on Rabbit Tail Streaming.
But after some thought, this didn’t seem feasible.
Because the ways a streaming platform could spend money were actually quite limited. Hiring more technical staff and developing more features wouldn’t cost that much money.
If they earned tens of millions but only spent a few million, that would be a drop in the bucket, not nearly enough.
The areas where they could spend big money were primarily buying broadcasting rights and poaching big streamers.
But spending money this way meant that Rabbit Tail Streaming’s popularity and attention would surge again, which was too risky!
From Rabbit Tail Streaming’s launch until now, things had been inexplicably smooth sailing. With the ICL League and GPL League in hand, and after receiving some gift packages from other streaming platforms, Rabbit Tail Streaming had no shortage of attention and popularity, and the platform’s content was no longer sparse.
Under these circumstances, spending tens of millions more to buy broadcasting rights and poach big streamers?
That would likely trigger a chain reaction.
So, after careful consideration, Pei Qian felt that this money should not be spent on Rabbit Tail Streaming; the risk was too great.
Rabbit Tail Streaming was currently like a critically ill patient—it needed observation, and definitely couldn’t be given strong medicine. It needed to be nursed slowly.
So, where would be the safest place to spend this money?
After thinking back and forth, Pei Qian suddenly thought of a good destination.
Give it to OTTO Technology!
More precisely, give it to OTTO Technology’s laboratory for research in artificial intelligence.
Although OTTO Technology had AEEIS, and researching artificial intelligence technology would be profitable, the last cycle had already seen a technological breakthrough in artificial intelligence!
It had been less than two months since the last settlement, so another breakthrough wouldn’t be appropriate, right?
Moreover, the last technological breakthrough had been designated by the system, so the system couldn’t be setting him up, could it?
People shouldn’t stumble over the same stone twice, right?
This way, spending a large sum to establish an artificial intelligence technology laboratory might produce some minor results and make AEEIS more user-friendly, perhaps even triggering some small-scale chain reactions…
But as long as there were no breakthroughs or leaps in artificial intelligence technology, these research funds invested wouldn’t yield any significant returns.
Or rather, even if there were some returns, they probably wouldn’t happen in this cycle.
The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more appropriate it seemed. He said to Xiao Li, “Let’s go to OTTO Technology first.”
…
Half an hour later, Pei Qian arrived at OTTO Technology’s conference room and explained his idea to OTTO Technology’s new head, Jiang Yuan.
Jiang Yuan’s expression froze, momentarily unable to react.
“Mr. Pei, you mean you want to invest 40 million to build another artificial intelligence laboratory for OTTO Technology? Directly poach existing teams with high salaries for artificial intelligence technology research? Or acquire some existing companies?”
Pei Qian nodded, “That’s right.”
Jiang Yuan hurriedly said, “Mr. Pei, please reconsider!”
“Currently, the best artificial intelligence technology in the country is from Xun Ke Technology, and even AEEIS uses Xun Ke Technology’s technology. They have been deeply cultivating in related fields for many years, and the previous application of artificial intelligence technology can be said to be the result of accumulated efforts.”
“Even if we spend a huge amount to establish an artificial intelligence laboratory and poach existing technical teams, we would only be developing on the existing foundation, unlikely to have any technological breakthroughs. At most, we would just optimize AEEIS’s current situation.”
“Under these circumstances, it’s almost impossible to recover such a massive research investment. The same amount of money would actually be much more effective if spent elsewhere.”
“The key issue is that the cost-performance ratio is not high, and it’s really unnecessary!”
Pei Qian couldn’t help but chuckle.
Cost-performance ratio not high? Very unnecessary?
That’s exactly right, we’re thinking along the same lines!
Pei Qian could have said nothing and just arranged for Jiang Yuan to handle it, but since Jiang Yuan had just taken over Chang You’s position and hadn’t been in charge for long, he was afraid Jiang Yuan might not handle things efficiently, so he needed to give some extra instructions to strengthen his conviction.
Pei Qian said meaningfully, “That’s where you’re wrong!”
“Although we’re currently using Xun Ke Technology’s technology quite well, using someone else’s core technology ultimately isn’t ideal.”
“Look at our company name, OTTO Technology—doesn’t it seem wrong not to do our own independent research and development?”
“From a short-term perspective, perhaps the returns won’t be great, but looking long-term, establishing our own laboratory and doing independent research and development is absolutely essential.”
“Our goal is for all core technologies to be independently developed, never being controlled by others!”
“Furthermore, artificial intelligence technology is the future and is related to many of Tenda’s industries. No amount of investment in this direction is too much!”
“You should always remember this in your work: marketing is all virtual, core technology is what’s real and solid. Understand?”
This passionate speech made Jiang Yuan’s blood boil.
“I understand, Mr. Pei!”
“I was indeed shortsighted.”
“I’ll arrange it immediately. If we can poach research groups, we’ll poach research groups. If we can directly invest in or buy research teams, that’s also fine. We’ll need to carefully investigate the specific situations.”
Pei Qian nodded, “Mm, just go ahead and do it!”
…
After handling matters on both sides, Pei Qian came to Slackin’ Internet Café, planning to have a cup of coffee and rest a bit.
Rabbit Tail Streaming’s matters had made Pei Qian feel a bit mentally exhausted lately, but now things were finally settled.
The ICL League broadcasting rights had been distributed, and although Dragon Yu Group would continue to spend big money promoting the ICL League in the future, it was no longer exclusive, and popularity would be divided among other streaming platforms. Rabbit Tail Streaming should be safe in the short term.
It was about time to check on the situation with other industries.
…
Meanwhile, the vice presidents of various streaming platforms had also returned to their respective companies and begun preparing for the ICL League broadcasts.
Even while negotiating the contract, these vice presidents had already notified their technical teams, and they had been busy preparing the ICL League streaming rooms and various promotional materials these past two days.
Tomorrow was Thursday, and there would be a fairly popular focal match in the evening. All these streaming platforms had required their teams to work overtime, striving to complete all pre-broadcast preparations before tomorrow evening.
After all, Friday’s matches weren’t very exciting. If they missed the heat of this match, they would have to wait until Saturday for the next focal match, missing out on a lot of popularity.
At the same time, Dragon Yu Group was also arranging for teams to connect with various streaming platforms, with both sides making every effort to copy Rabbit Tail Streaming’s feature: real-time data display during matches.
These data were originally available in the backend, but they needed to be retrieved in real-time and then displayed in certain chart forms. The specific packaging would still require some development time to complete.
However, there was no rush, as the season had just started not long ago, and a week earlier or later wouldn’t make much difference.
Zhao Xuming also didn’t expect this feature to bring much heat to the ICL League; it was more of a defensive measure.
If GPL had it but ICL didn’t, people would think the ICL League wasn’t professional enough, so even if they would be accused of copying, this feature had to be implemented.
The only small problem was that currently, the actual broadcast times of various streaming platforms had subtle differences, which greatly slowed down the development progress.
Rabbit Tail Streaming was the fastest, 30 seconds ahead of other streaming platforms, and other platforms might have delays of a few seconds due to network delays, lag, and other issues when broadcasting matches.
But it was difficult for this data to change with each platform’s progress because what the ICL League officially provided to each streaming platform was just the broadcast signal. The in-game data was all in their own backend, and it was troublesome to transmit this data to each platform, making it hard to perfectly synchronize the timing between both sides.
For example, if a player just got a big kill, causing their economy to suddenly surge by 1,000, but the real-time data hadn’t updated yet, it would seem very awkward.
Rabbit Tail Streaming didn’t need to consider this problem at all because only they had this feature, so they didn’t need to consider other platforms and could just use Rabbit Tail Streaming as the standard.
But it was more complicated for Zhao Xuming, who wanted to implement this feature for all platforms broadcasting the ICL League.
After some consideration, Zhao Xuming realized there were essentially two solutions: either ignore the time differences between platforms and forcibly use a compromise time, or put in a lot more effort to make the data follow each platform’s current broadcast image.
After discussing with the technical team, Zhao Xuming felt they should go with the latter.
Because there was a 30-second difference between Rabbit Tail Streaming and other platforms, if they forcibly compromised, 15 seconds would be enough to complete a relatively quick team fight, and equipment and economic data might not update in time, making the feature seem very amateurish.
So, they could only choose the second solution, putting in more effort to develop this feature to keep the data consistent with each platform’s current broadcast image.
This would slow down the development time, but after consideration, Zhao Xuming believed it was worth it.
After settling these tasks, Zhao Xuming also let out a long breath.
After all these twists and turns, the ICL League was finally on the right track!
Various streaming platforms were broadcasting, and the league’s popularity was steadily rising. As long as they could smoothly promote it next, accumulating viewers and heat, it would definitely have a good effect on promoting the ioi National Server in the future!
When ioi’s mobile game launched in the future, it would signal a full counterattack!