Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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From a business perspective

The probability of the second option is not small, but Lin Li thought it over and over again.

In its previous life, in 2018, FGO's global revenue surpassed that of Honor of Kings.

At this point, there's no reason for FGO to lose.

Ultimately, under his leadership, FGO, if not revived, was at least much better in terms of game quality than in its previous form.

Honor of Kings has been somewhat affected by the competition in the dimensional war.

Based on this analysis, it falls into the first category.

But at this time.

Because the incident involving the penguin happened suddenly, and the statements were made with great certainty.

This made Lin Li a little hesitant to confirm.

The operations team was sent to work on the data again.

So when faced with a reporter's interview, Lin Li played along, not giving a direct response, but instead posting an article on Zhihu explaining why Honor of Kings is profitable.

"I was moved to hear that Honor of Kings has generated 140 billion yuan in revenue."

"Is Honor of Kings a fair MOBA game? Actually, no. Just take runes as an example. A set of level 150 runes is equivalent to more than 1,000 gold coins in terms of equipment price. In the early game, that's equivalent to having 2-3 more major items than others."

"Can you imagine giving a group of people a thousand gold coins right from the start in a dimensional battlefield? Obviously, that's impossible."

"So why is Honor of Kings so popular? Because Honor of Kings is not actually a MOBA game, but a social MOBA simulator."

"Lowering the user threshold and attracting more players to the game through QQ and WeChat is the core of Honor of Kings."

"But no matter how much you lower the barrier to entry, people who don't know MOBAs still won't know them and will get crushed."

“If players are constantly being humiliated, they will leave, and the player pool will not be able to grow.”

"Imagine that today you attract 1 players to the game through QQ and WeChat, but most of them may not know MOBAs or even know how to use skills."

How can we get them to stay?

"Ordinary games, including our Dimensional Wars, choose to let players gradually become familiar with the game, grow gradually, and find joy in the game."

"But this method cannot retain lower-level players, nor can it retain core players, or even top players."

"MOBA games always get boring."

"Therefore, Honor of Kings uses a massive algorithm, combined with AI, to intervene in every game played by players."

"Even if you're a complete newbie, and all you know is how to use skills and nothing else, in a match where you're the one to win, you can still go on a killing spree and eventually take the victory, experiencing the simplest and most direct thrill."

Chapter 144 Theory of Flowing Water

"As for those so-called experts, Honor of Kings can control your win rate to keep you playing. Even if you are a five-man team, it won't help because in a match, players can only control their own team and cannot control the opponents they are matched with."

"Judging from the results, Honor of Kings made the right choice by taking the MOBA simulator route."

~~~

Lin Li's post on Zhihu successfully capitalized on a trending topic.

On the surface, he was explaining why Honor of Kings was successful, and in reality, he did analyze a lot of things.

But in fact.

He was advertising his own game, "Dimensional Wars".

The market doesn't need a second Honor of Kings, and Lin Li can't possibly beat Honor of Kings without a social media traffic entry point.

However, he can divide it.

We can take a piece of flesh from Honor of Kings.

Cut off players who don't like playing MOBA simulators.

After Lin Li published this article.

It quickly attracted countless players and media.

Lin Li's status in the Chinese gaming industry at that time was actually quite remarkable, somewhat like that of a gaming godfather, a fact that could be heard from many game developers.

"President Lin gave me a lot of inspiration."

"Mr. Lin is the cornerstone of this game's success."

“We gained new insights through our communication with General Manager Lin.”

These words have become somewhat like a formula.

Basically, ever since 17, whenever you interview a successful Chinese game development team, you can hear similar sentiments.

In addition, Spark's own games have been successful one after another.

Therefore, in the eyes of the players...

Lin Li has always been portrayed as a genius producer.

Moreover, Lin Li is never pretentious and most of the time he looks like a gamer, so he has a lot of fans, whether on Weibo, Bilibili, or Zhihu.

~~~

"Now I understand, Honor of Kings is not a game at all, no wonder it can make money."

"MOBA simulator, hahaha, that's such a perfect summary."

"Is it funny? I feel that Old Man Lin wrote it very realistically."

"I finally understand why Honor of Kings can make money."

Different players have completely different opinions after reading this article.

From the penguin's perspective...

Lin Lifang's article is purely the sarcastic remark of a loser.

Based on the simplistic logic that the more displeased the enemy is, the more right we are, Ma Xiao didn't think deeply about it and directly ordered the pursuit to continue.

Even at this point, reports were already coming in, informing Ma Xiao that Honor of Kings' revenue might not necessarily secure the top spot globally.

But Ma Xiao didn't care at all.

He was like an assassin who had finally found an opportunity to launch a sneak attack on the battlefield, and all he could think about was plunging his dagger into the enemy's heart.

Ma Xiao didn't care about the other information.

And he is currently the head of Tencent Games.

The boss has already said it, so what can the people below do?

Even if someone noticed something was wrong.

But the penguins' offensive became increasingly fierce.

First and foremost is the propaganda department.

To celebrate becoming the world's number one in revenue, Honor of Kings gave all players a skin of their choice (fragments) and also launched a limited-time rerun of a historical 6-yuan skin.

This is quite rare in the marketing history of Honor of Kings.

This stimulates consumption.

Indeed, it boosted the revenue of Honor of Kings in a short period of time.

Daily revenue easily exceeds 100 million.

So before one trending topic has even ended, another one has already arrived.

At the player level.

Countless online trolls swarmed out, and many "players" used this news to rave about on various Spark forums.

They even created a meme and spread it around.

Spark: I have the Spark platform, and The Scroll of Taiwu sells millions of copies every day.

Tencent: My Honor of Kings has the highest annual revenue in the world.

Spark: My Frontline female players are located in dozens of countries around the world

Tencent: My Honor of Kings has the highest annual revenue in the world.

Spark: I support developers and build a world stage.

Tencent: My Honor of Kings has the highest annual revenue in the world.

In short, they adhere to the "flow theory" and spread the message that Tencent is the best game company in China.

There are also many videos analyzing Spark and Penguin, and along with these videos comes a sentence.

"If you want to dream, go to Spark; if you want to make money, go to Tencent!"

These arguments are very popular.

It seems that overnight, the Penguin model has become the only way to make money.

Actually, this kind of publicity...

It's somewhat like killing 1000 enemies while losing 800 of your own.

After all, your subconscious belief in the supremacy of flowing water means that you can't offer anything else besides flowing water.

Under normal circumstances.

For a large company like Tencent, there is absolutely no need to spend money on such a self-defeating marketing campaign.

but.

It's because Ma Xiao was indeed thoroughly beaten by Xinghuo before, leaving him completely disoriented.

Now that we can get revenge, of course we should retaliate.

If everyone were rational, there wouldn't be so many bizarre news stories in the world.

Whatever Penguin's reasons, this whole operation has infuriated Spark's fans.

The two sides began oral gymnastics.

Some videos analyzing Penguin and Spark can even garner tens of thousands of comments.

That's quite an exaggeration.

However, overall, this information war...

Penguins actually have the overall advantage because, among all the arguments, they grasped one core point: the theory of flowing water.

Regardless of whether revenue can be used as proof of whether a game is fun.

But this thing is a numerical value.

Since it's a numerical value, it can be used for comparison.

Moreover, it's a competition where a winner can be determined.

In terms of reputation, Penguin is indeed no match for Spark.

Compared to overseas markets, Tencent might be a bit lacking.

But when it comes to making money, penguins are definitely not sleepy.

This is Ma Xiao's open strategy.

Unless Spark can also produce a game that surpasses the revenue of Tencent's Honor of Kings, but... is that even possible?

Is there any game in this world that can surpass Honor of Kings?

Anyway, Ma Xiao doesn't think so.

To be honest, do you think this move will help the overall situation? Will it affect the Spark platform? I don't know, but it's definitely disgusting.

In particular, a bunch of clowns are spreading such remarks all over the Spark forum.

The players of Spark were arguing and getting angry at the same time.

So soon.

Another topic has begun to emerge among Spark players.