Chapter 122 ITERATION

Both sides of the competition proceeded according to the normal schedule, match by match.

However, the more Pei Qian watched, the more he felt that something was wrong.

The gap in popularity between the two sides was becoming increasingly obvious!

In the beginning, IOI had a fair number of viewers, but as it went on, there were fewer and fewer, and the popularity decreased, slowly shifting towards GOG!

Even Pei Qian himself couldn't help but want to defect. Even when he put away his phone, he still wanted to know how the battle was going on the GOG side.

After reluctantly watching a few IOI matches, Pei Qian discovered a problem.

The level of this competition was not very good!

On the one hand, IOI's game mechanics were relatively outdated, and the heroes lacked affinity with the audience. On the other hand, the level of these teams was uneven, and the matches they played were not much different from high-scoring ranked games.

Although they were watchable, the teams' coordination was very poor. They clearly didn't play like a whole team, but like five strangers.

If there hadn't been the GOG competition, it would have been fine, but with the two sides holding competitions together, the difference was immediately apparent!

Most viewers were already more inclined towards GOG. They only came to watch IOI because of the "China vs. Foreign" gimmick, but after watching a few games, they found it uninteresting and quickly defected.

Once they defected, they never came back!

What's more, there were traitors jumping back and forth between the two live streams, pulling a large number of viewers away from the IOI stream.

On the live streaming websites, the ebb and flow of popularity between the two was very obvious.

Even more outrageous, Pei Qian discovered that some people were secretly leaving the venue!

After all, the tickets were very cheap, practically given away, so they didn't feel bad about leaving early.

These people obviously felt that the competition was not good, and sitting here was a waste of time, so they all slipped away.

Pei Qian was about to vomit blood.

Don't go! Stay and watch!

He wanted to shout this loudly, but he knew very well that no matter how much he shouted, it would be useless. The players would vote with their feet.

Pei Qian sighed and leaned back in his seat, feeling complicated.

Although the competition would not officially end until tomorrow, judging from the current situation, the ending was probably already decided, and there was no turning back.

What to do?

...

...

July 24th, Sunday.

Today, Pei Qian did not go to watch the GOG or IOI competition again, because the ending was already decided. Going again would only be like being flogged one more time.

Last night, Pei Qian spent a long time browsing the forums, looking at the players' comments on the two competitions. Sure enough, there was no luck.

GOG completely crushed IOI's popularity!

So much so that many players began to feel sorry for IOI.

"Watching IOI's popularity keep dropping, I really feel sorry for them. The organizers must have spent a lot of money on pre-promotion, but now it's all turned out for the best, and all the players they attracted have become GOG's popularity!"

"Yes, I have examples of IOI die-hard fans switching to GOG around me..."

"There's no way, GOG is too strong. Mobile and PC cross-platform, fun game mechanics, and even the professional matches are more interesting than IOI!"

"IOI is really miserable."

"Logically speaking, a successful foreign game entering the domestic market, with its own high-quality game, fast updates, and very powerful operational activities, there's no reason why it shouldn't be popular, right?"

"Yes, if there was no Tengda, that would be the case."

"In fact, IOI's domestic server hasn't made a single wrong move. If the opponent wasn't GOG, it would have been pushed up long ago. But GOG is too abnormal, crowdfunding games, internet cafe promotion, holding competitions... plus the initial dual-platform cross-platform, season settlement rewards, they had already seized the market first. Moreover, IOI's every attack has been perfectly resolved, it's really too strong!"

"President Pei is an operational genius."

"Indeed, with President Pei handling GOG, IOI can't win."

"Wait, isn't IOI also operated by Tengda? Shang Yang Games seems to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tengda, right?"

"Hey, don't you understand preferential treatment? Don't you understand the Gu breeding strategy? Can't you see which side President Pei is on now?"

"Indeed, President Pei is definitely more biased towards GOG, it's his own son."

Seeing these comments, Pei Qian felt very tired.

Which side am I on?

Of course, I'm on IOI's side! Is there even a need to say that!

However, not to mention the players, even the people at Shang Yang Games wouldn't necessarily believe it.

Pei Qian was very helpless, it seemed that this matter was a failure.

But thinking on the bright side...

Could it be that IOI's domestic server can just lie down and lose money in the future?

Although Lin Wan is unlikely to leave Tengda to inherit the family business, but after this mess, the victory or defeat of GOG and IOI in the domestic market has been decided. Continuing to burn money on IOI, wouldn't that be a pleasant way to throw money down the drain?

Pei Qian felt that people had to adapt to circumstances.

Since IOI really can't be helped, then change the way of thinking and let it become a tool for him to lose money, that seems not bad!

...

While Pei Qian was thinking about the countermeasures, he came to the cafe to listen to Qiu Hong talk about his failure experiences.

So far, Qiu Hong had shared several failure experiences.

Chaotic project management.

Interference from the boss or other external forces.

Failure to discover talent.

Common sense deviations, communication barriers.

Disagreement within the R&D team.

It had to be said that these failure experiences were all Qiu Hong's heartfelt words.

According to him, any one of these would cause difficulties in project development. Two would cause the R&D work to fall into a quagmire, and three would be hell on earth.

But Pei Qian discovered that these fatal problems had been miraculously solved within Tengda!

This was just outrageous.

It was like a race. Everyone else started from the starting line, but Pei Qian found that he seemed to be standing on the finish line from the beginning.

But the key was, he was trying to run backwards!

In short, it was very awkward.

Of all the failure experiences, Pei Qian felt that only the "disagreement within the R&D team" could be tried to be utilized, but he had no idea how to utilize it specifically.

He could only hope that Qiu Hong would share an even more useful failure experience with him today.

Qiu Hong took a sip of coffee and observed "Ma Yang's" expression: "President Ma, judging from your expression, you seem to be half happy and half worried."

Pei Qian nodded: "Yeah."

This was true, but the "happy" and "worried" things were completely reversed.

Qiu Hong smiled: "Life is rarely completely satisfactory, President Ma doesn't need to take it too seriously."

"The failure experience I want to talk about today is iteration."

Pei Qian instantly perked up.

This seemed to be a failure experience that could be used directly!

So-called iteration is actually updating versions.

Like many games updating from 1.0 to 1.1, and then to 2.0, these are all considered iterations.

Qiu Hong continued: "President Ma, you may have doubts. Isn't iteration a necessary factor for the success of all projects? How can it lead to failure?"

"The key depends on whether the iteration has an accurate goal."

"All failed iterations have one thing in common, and that is that no one knows what the ultimate form of this game or this product is. They are always wandering aimlessly, changing it as they go."

"Demands are constantly changing, and modifications are endless."

"This behavior means that everyone is unclear about the ultimate form of the product. As a result, it often becomes more and more skewed, more and more chaotic. On the surface, the project is getting better in each iteration, but in reality, it is constantly deviating from the correct path, and eventually it cannot be recovered."

"Many games are like this. The prototype was originally very clear, but in the process of development, they always want more things, so they keep iterating, constantly adding new things, and finally it becomes a hodgepodge."

"Especially when these two failure factors of 'wrong iteration' and 'disagreement within the project' are combined, it will be a super, super, super terrifying disaster!"

"The entire project will fall into endless internal friction, like a tour boat caught in a vortex. Even the best helmsman cannot bring it out. They can only watch it sink and disintegrate little by little, beyond redemption."

Pei Qian's eyes couldn't help but light up.

Good, the money wasn't wasted!

He had finally learned a killer move from Qiu Hong!

In the past, Tengda's games did go through iterations and update versions, but at that time, the purpose of updating versions was very clear, so they were unfortunately successful.

But now, with Qiu Hong's theory as a guide, Pei Qian suddenly felt that the dawn of victory had appeared before him!

Make the voices within the project disagree, and then force them to iterate, repeatedly overturning and redoing, iterating and upgrading version after version, and finally launching a hodgepodge before settlement.

Wouldn't that be a sure thing?

"President Qiu, thank you!" Pei Qian's eyes were shining, sincere and earnest.

Qiu Hong was a little flattered and quickly said, "President Ma, you don't need to be so polite. I'm just doing what I've been entrusted to do."

"Besides, I'm sharing failure experiences. If President Ma wants to utilize them, he still has to learn to think in reverse."

Pei Qian smiled.

Think in reverse?

No, I can directly use these failure experiences!

Indeed, it's good to learn more, otherwise, how could he have thought that there could be such a way to lose money?

This money was spent, well worth it!

...

...

July 25th, Monday.

The third stage of the arms race between GOG and IOI finally came to an end.

Yesterday afternoon, both sides of the competition determined their champions and awarded prizes and trophies.

However, who the champion was in itself was not important.

What was important was that after this competition, all the players and clubs clearly realized one fact: IOI is really not good in the domestic market!

In the foreseeable future, the domestic market will be dominated by GOG, and this competition has completely consolidated GOG's dominance!

...

DGE esports club.

The members of H4 club and DGE club were waving goodbye.

And Team Leader Su was talking with Zhang Yuan about the future of the domestic esports industry.

Although H4 club finished as runner-up in yesterday's finals, it was a pity, but for them, who had been repeatedly abused and didn't have much hope, this was a rather pleasant surprise.