Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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Taking last year as an example, Tencent's various studios shut down or were cut in half, resulting in the disbandment of 11 game projects, not even counting those launched with the "Bao Si" motif.

Under such circumstances, it would have been different if Girls' Frontline hadn't caused such a stir.

Being summoned for talks and being used as a negative example indirectly promoted the requirement for real-name registration of copywriting.

Yao Xiaodong didn't need to be in such a sorry state; he even had to use Yu Zhong as a scapegoat just to maintain the status quo.

After taking the blow for Yu Zhong, Yao Xiaodong has become quite Zen-like during this period.

It wasn't that he didn't do anything, but rather that Yao Xiaodong focused his energy on things that weren't visible, such as outsmarting Tencent's internal audit department and cleaning up his own mess.

For example, the matter of finding a new employer for Yu Zhong has been dragging on for a month and still hasn't been found, which is undoubtedly a ticking time bomb for him.

My mind was focused on other things, so naturally I didn't have the energy to pay attention to the game.

Although he was the head of the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) division, he adopted a hands-off approach, even handing over the entire marketing and promotion of "Crossing Void" to Chen Zhou.

This action, ironically, turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

He successfully shifted the blame onto Chen Zhou, while remaining unscathed himself. In fact, because Chen Zhou drew the attention of the others, Yao Xiaodong was able to easily handle the aftermath.

It's really wonderful.

A week ago, Yao Xiaodong would have had absolutely no interest in He Shen's invitation, but now that he's calmed down a bit, he's starting to have some ideas.

I wasn't thinking about anything else; my main concern was whether I could use this incident to get rid of Yu Zhong.

Of course, it certainly doesn't mean he should take over again himself.

He's not that stupid, but is it possible to use a penguin's mouth to trick someone into taking over this hot potato?

Yao Xiaodong thinks it's still possible.

In addition, he also felt that if he didn't do anything, even if the internal audit department of Tencent couldn't find his mistakes, he probably wouldn't be able to explain himself to Ma Huateng.

As for Chen Zhou...

I didn't want to come anyway. After all, He Shen and I are at the same level. Since we are at the same level, why should He Shen invite me?

Moreover, although WEGAME suffered a setback with "Crossing Void", Chen Zhou believes that...

The publicity and distribution process has been successfully completed.

WEGAME's global user base and domestic user base both increased during this promotional campaign.

However, while Chen Zhou could deceive himself, he couldn't deceive Ma Huateng. He only needed to compare the growth of the Xinghuo platform with the growth of WEGAME.

They immediately revealed their true forms.

So he still came today.

The three of them went to a lounge in the Penguin building, drank coffee, and the atmosphere was very quiet.

Seeing that neither of them spoke.

He Shen had no choice but to take charge.

Before explaining his thoughts, he first quoted Ma Huateng to give himself an excuse and a sense of pressure.

"This collaboration between Xinghuo and Douyin..."

What He Shen said was not complicated.

The reason why Ma Huateng suddenly put pressure on Penguin Games this time is because...

The action is coming from the spark.

Last week, Spark and ByteDance signed a contract, but the new operating company is still being set up and neither party has officially announced it to the public.

But the cooperation has already begun.

Just in time for the final week of "Dimensional Battlefield", Xinghuo tried to target Honor of Kings users with advertisements on Douyin.

At the same time, the account login test for "Dimensional Battlefield" on Douyin was directly enabled.

Although it was the first closed beta test, Spark did not conduct large-scale publicity or promotion.

It's just paving the way for the future.

It's unclear whether there was an inside job at ByteDance or if Tencent's survey collected user feedback.

In short.

Spark's relatively covert operation was actually caught by Tencent.

Then, based on their own user feedback, they deduced a startling fact: Douyin was targeting users of Honor of Kings.

Users are directed to "Dimensional Battlefield" through targeted short video ads.

The advertisement was simply something like, "[A brand new in-game fair competitive game, get a 99 RMB skin upon login]".

Or, "I played a game today, and it was really addictive!"

Such short, concise, and effective advertisements.

The success rate of the guidance is surprisingly over 40%!

So Tencent quickly sent out a questionnaire to some players of Honor of Kings. According to the user feedback, among the players who had played [Dimensional Battlefield], 80% of the users selected "very likely" when asked about the probability of continuing to play Dimensional Battlefield after the official launch.

This series of data made Ma Huateng sense that something was wrong.

He wasn't feeling threatened by "Dimension Battlegrounds," it was just a game.

What truly alarmed Ma Huateng was the logical chain of Douyin + Xinghuo.

What are companies that started with traffic the most afraid of?

The worst thing is the emergence of another traffic source, and that source is not under our control.

This is what Ma Huateng fears.

He Shen, Chen Zhou, and Yao Xiaodong, who are sitting here, are all shrewd and calculating.

Everyone naturally understood what Ma Huateng was worried about.

"The boss wants us to cooperate with the overall strategy and suppress Starfire quickly, at all costs..."

He Shenxian set the tone.

The so-called general direction.

Actually, the battle between Tencent and Douyin started in April of this year.

Since early April, Tencent has accused ByteDance's platform of infringing on its copyright by live streaming Tencent Games. In the first half of the year alone, there have been as many as 10 related lawsuits.

Furthermore, after Douyin began its rapid expansion in April of this year, Tencent activated the Douyin blocking function across all its products, including QQ and WeChat.

TikTok users who want to share videos with friends have to go through several roundabout steps, and some even have to download the video before sending it.

Not only that.

Penguin also uses Penguin Video as its flagship platform, bringing together more than 70 film and television institutions such as iQiyi and Youku, as well as hundreds of artists.

They wielded the copyright stick twice, issuing a joint statement in public.

Chapter 451 Alliance?

The statement calls on short video platforms to respect originality and protect copyright, emphasizing that unauthorized use of film and television works for infringing creations is prohibited. The statement also clearly states that those who infringe on copyrights will be held accountable according to law.

Regardless of whether this series of crackdowns is effective or not.

Anyway, all departments at Tencent are putting pressure on each other and are working hard.

Even though many Tencent executives felt that instead of suppressing Douyin, it would be better to cooperate and achieve a win-win situation.

pity.

Penguins are used to being domineering in the country.

Cooperation? Win-win?

Ma Huateng only said one thing: "If ByteDance makes communication software in the future, will you cooperate and achieve a win-win situation?"

TikTok lets you make short videos, can't you do it too?!

no way.

If the boss wants to fight, the subordinates will naturally want to fight too.

Therefore, during this period of time, suppressing TikTok has become the politically correct thing for Tencent.

This is quite similar to Tencent Games' current attempt to suppress the Spark Games platform.

Let's not worry about whether it will work or not.

The actions need to be taken.

~~~

"Suppress the fire? Form an alliance? Replicate the success?"

After listening to He Shen's three suggestions, Chen Zhou's first reaction was that he felt a little bored.

He thought he had some brilliant idea, but it turned out to be just this?

But then he realized that this was probably the only way to do it at the moment.

Penguins don't have many cards to play right now.

Yao Xiaodong himself wasn't confident about the anime-style games he was working on, and Chen Zhou's momentum waned after he used League of Legends to boost WEGAME's popularity.

He Shen does have King of Glory.

However, with such a huge revenue stream, Honor of Kings cannot possibly compete with Dimension Battlegrounds.

Are players who have already paid for skins willing to accept having their skin attributes reset to zero? The rune system is already deeply ingrained in various pay-to-win aspects of the game.

These are almost all things that have been passed down from our ancestors and cannot be changed. In addition, the test of "Dimensional Battlefield" is about to end, so it will be difficult to achieve results even if we try harder now.

It stands to reason.

Since none of the three players in charge of the game have any cards, they should stabilize the situation for a while before making any further plans.

But then yesterday's incident happened again.

Therefore, He Shencai proposed three major strategies.

Suppressing the fire—there's not much to say, it's just about fighting against the sparks.

The key points are the last two sentences.

Build an alliance and replicate the success.

The former was actually done by Tencent once, back when Wang Guang was in charge, but later Tencent also wanted to develop its own WEGAME platform.

In essence, he became another person who overturned the table.

The so-called anti-Spark alliance immediately disbanded.

He Shen brought it up again this time.

Chen Zhou then asked instinctively.

"What will we use to form the alliance? And what can we do to Starfire after it's formed?"

Although the words are plain and simple, they hit the nail on the head.

As the person in charge of WEGAME, Chen Zhou naturally wanted to form an alliance, but the problem was, for an alliance to work, you need something to connect.

WEGAME has now begun to move towards a low-cost platform.

How do you form an alliance?

He Shen chuckled.

"It doesn't have to be a real alliance, as long as the momentum is there. Isn't E3 coming up in July? We can use that as a starting point."

~~~

The domestic gaming community.

After the copywriting reform in May, and the release of "Zero Crossing" in June to compete with "Dimensional Battlefield", we arrived at the beginning of July.

Apart from Honkai Impact 2.5 achieving tens of millions in revenue in its first week at the end of June and Arknights' upcoming release in early July, things have settled into a certain calm.

We have entered a buffer period.