My capital is quite large.

Chapter 143 The Explosive Popularity of League of Legends

At midnight, as a string of green code flowed through the Haofeng Network Control Room, a brand new world called "Valoran" appeared!

The server has only been open for ten minutes!

The three main servers for League of Legends in China—Ionia, Bilgewater, and Zaun—are all at full capacity!

The combined bombardment of opening screens from iQiyi, Bilibili, and Haofeng's Weibo, along with the exhilarating championship highlights from the S1 World Championship, had already raised the expectations of young domestic gamers to their peak!

Countless college students who had just stayed up all night in internet cafes and young white-collar workers who had just gotten out of bed eagerly entered their account passwords.

When they first entered the magical Summoner's Rift, and experienced for the first time the smooth system that didn't require cumbersome LAN room creation and could match ten players in seconds simply by clicking "Find a Match,"...

All the players who were used to the HaoFang gaming platform and various crude clients felt what a revolutionary, dimensional-reducing blow was!

What impressed them even more was the in-game shop system!

There are no enhanced protection vouchers, no resurrection coins, and certainly no VIP exclusive artifacts that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars and come with insane attribute bonuses!

The in-game store only sells two things: heroes and skins!

Moreover, all heroes can be unlocked for free by playing more games and accumulating "gold coins"!

As for those skins priced at tens of dollars, at the bottom of the purchase page, there is a statement in striking red font that brings tears to the eyes of all ordinary players:

[Haofeng promises: All skins only provide appearance and special effects changes, and will never add any combat attributes! Here, skill is your only passport!]

"Holy crap! Is Haofeng doing charity?! This is real esports!"

"The world has suffered under Tencent and NetEase for too long! I've had enough of getting one-shotted by those whales who've spent 80,000 yuan in games! Brothers, come to Ionia, let's play all night tonight!"

"The graphics of this game are stunning, and the computer requirements are extremely low! That crappy computer in the internet cafe can run it at full settings and at a perfect frame rate!"

The revelry lasted all night and spread through dormitories and internet cafes in various universities.

……

The next morning, Shenzhen, Fiyta Building.

Inside the meeting room of Tencent Games, Pony Ma looked at the backend monitoring data that he had worked on overnight, his face ashen.

"One million! In less than ten hours since the server opened, the peak concurrent player count has surpassed one million?!"

Pony Ma's sharp gaze swept over the executives present. "This is what you called 'not a concern'? This is what you considered a 'niche product'?!"

The vice president of IEG wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and stood up with a stiff upper lip.

Although the data is indeed astonishing, his inherent arrogance as a traditional PC game operator still makes him disdainful of the business model of "League of Legends".

"Mr. Ma, these figures have indeed exceeded our expectations, but this is largely due to Haofeng Network's extremely aggressive pre-launch marketing and promotion!"

The vice president tried to salvage the situation, saying, "Domestic players tend to follow the crowd. It's normal for a new game that's heavily promoted online and advertised as 'absolutely free and fair' to have a surge in online players on its first day. That's called the 'honeymoon period' for new games!"

"However, our think tank analyzed their first-day revenue overnight! The data was extremely poor!"

"Since they don't sell any attribute bonuses, many players don't spend a single penny and are basically using the server for free! Their revenue on the first day was less than one-tenth of what we do when we release a new weapon in CrossFire!"

At this point, the vice president became a little more confident, pointing to another data chart.

"And you see, although 'Dream of the Three Kingdoms,' which we've been supporting, did suffer some setbacks last night, its core VIP players and guild base remained completely unaffected!"

"How could those rich players who spent tens of thousands in 'Dream of the Three Kingdoms' and enjoyed the worship of ordinary players possibly abandon those sunk costs to go to 'League of Legends' and practice some kind of fair laning with a bunch of poor students who eat instant noodles?"

"Therefore, our assessment remains optimistic! The current popularity of League of Legends is just a temporary novelty! Once the novelty wears off, those Chinese players who are used to the fast-paced, easy-to-play style of dominating will find it unbearable to endure the tedium of repeatedly practicing skills and will definitely return to our VIP ecosystem!"

This analysis, based on the logic of traditional "Chinese-style online games," sounds perfectly logical.

Even Pony Ma's tightly furrowed brows relaxed slightly after hearing this.

Yes, a game that can't make money is just burning money to gain popularity, no matter how many online players it has.

"We must not let our guard down."

Although Pony the horse was calmed down, he remained vigilant and issued a response strategy:

"Increase resource allocation to 'Dream of the Three Kingdoms'! Maximize the nostalgia factor of the Three Kingdoms IP through QQ pop-ups and major portal websites!"

"We'll launch in-game recharge rebates and give away QQ coins! This will keep players glued to our servers!"

"I want to see how long Li Feng's 'living bodhisattva' style of playing without selling stats can burn through money!"

The penguins' response was remarkably swift.

A large amount of resources and funds were poured into "Dream of the Three Kingdoms," and the overwhelming GG and recharge frenzy did stabilize their own base in a short period of time, and even created the illusion that they could compete with LOL in the MOBA field.

however.

The executives at Tencent had no idea that Li Feng's real killer move in the PC game arena was never the game itself.

Rather... it's about ecology!

……

A month later.

Just as Tencent's executives were watching the steady recovery of revenue from "Dream of the Three Kingdoms" and preparing to pop champagne to celebrate their successful defense against Hao Feng's offensive,

An unprecedented storm swept across universities and hundreds of thousands of internet cafes nationwide!

The inaugural League of Legends City Heroes Championship has officially begun!

There are no insurmountable professional barriers, and no age restrictions.

As long as you gather four friends, even if they are just random people gathered together in an internet cafe, as long as your account reaches the maximum level, you can go to the front desk to register for the competition!

The competitions consist of weekly internet cafe tournaments, monthly city tournaments, provincial tournaments, four regional finals, and finally the national finals!

What's truly eye-catching, besides the national champion's prize money of up to millions of RMB, is the various cash, points, and physical rewards that have been offered since the start of the internet cafe competition!

This is not just a competition; it's a celebration of "grassroots comebacks," "brotherhood," and "hometown glory"!

"Hey guys! Feiyu Internet Cafe downstairs is having a tournament this weekend. The champion gets 500 RMB in cash plus 1000 game points! The five of us in our dorm make a perfect team! Let's go crush those noobs from the School of Economics and Management next door!"

"Our internet cafe's champion team is heading to the city for the city tournament today! Rumor has it they'll be getting special promotion on Haofeng's Weibo the whole time! If they beat our city's champions, they'll get to show off in front of all the players in the city!"

This is insane! All the young male netizens in China are going crazy!

Those ordinary players who were previously crushed by wealthy players in "Dream of the Three Kingdoms" and those young people eager to prove their worth through the game have flooded into the "League of Legends" arena like a swarm of locusts crossing a river!

Inspired by SKY's documentary, these young people suddenly realized:

Playing games is no longer a decadent way to waste your youth holed up in an internet cafe.

If you are skilled enough, you can stand on the stage, become a respected "city hero", and even have the opportunity to enter the legendary professional e-sports hall and compete for the world championship!

This is a kind of "dimensional reduction attack" that gives games "social identity" and "hope for upward mobility".

In just a few weeks, the number of online players in "Dream of the Three Kingdoms" was reduced to a pitiful amount, leaving not even a trace of bones!

When the latest monitoring data was transmitted back to the Fiyta Building in Shenzhen, the top executives at Tencent were dumbfounded!

"Mr. Ma... the number of online players for 'Dream of the Three Kingdoms' has... collapsed."

The IEG vice president stared at the plummeting data, his voice trembling like a leaf.

"Haofeng Network doesn't play by the rules at all! Not only are they not making money, they're throwing money away! They've turned internet cafe tournaments into something as crazy as the NBA! Now the whole internet is talking about esports and City Heroes! Our VIP whales who spent money are finding that there aren't even any ordinary players to beat up in the game anymore, and there's a massive exodus!"

"Idiots!! A bunch of short-sighted idiots!!"

Pony Ma threw the documents on the table at the group of executives:

"Li Feng isn't just making a game! He's building a bottomless ecosystem! He's building an esports empire!!!"

"If he can expand the esports market and bring all the young people into this league, he can earn tens of billions just by selling broadcasting rights, securing sponsorships, and selling merchandise!!!"

Panic swept through Penguin headquarters.

Pony Ma knew that if Haofeng fell behind in the e-sports arena, Tencent's core gaming business would become second-rate!

"It's never too late to mend the fence after the sheep are lost!"

Pony Ma gritted his teeth and issued the order to burn money:

"Establish the TGA esports platform immediately!"

"CrossFire 100-City League! Dungeon Fighter Online National Fighting Tournament! And Dream of the Three Kingdoms, get all of them into competition! Increase the prize pool tenfold!"

"Go poach talent! Go build a professional team! We at Tencent can go to twice the heights that Li Feng can pull off! We absolutely cannot hand over our esports dominance to Hao Feng!"