Chapter 102 Unsuccessful Butterfly

Meng Chang didn't know much about esports, as it was a relatively new industry and not one he had much interest in.

He didn't watch esports matches or play related games.

But Meng Chang was smart. For unfamiliar fields, he could always research and gather information.

As an emerging industry, esports was controversial from the start. There were many heated topics online, so finding dirt was easy.

He didn't need to delve too deeply, as he was just making an esports-related promotional video.

It was like making a promotional video for racing; you wouldn't need to race yourself or understand all the car's specifications, would you?

So, Meng Chang spent some time online, finding information and gathering material.

To his surprise, Feihuang Studio, under Tengda, had made an esports documentary that had generated a good response.

The documentary was called "Breaking the Cocoon," and it mainly told the story of a professional *Counter Terrorism Plan* player's journey.

Training at least 14 hours a day, rarely seeing friends and family, hardly any holidays… When he decided to go pro, his father locked him at home, but he kicked down the door and ran to Shanghai to start his career.

In short, it highlighted the hardships.

The entire documentary was very realistic, including interviews, training base footage, and scenes of the player's hometown, with full attention to detail.

Meng Chang trusted Feihuang Studio's professionalism. The documentary was definitely based on facts, and the audience's feedback proved it.

"Great, this documentary saved me a lot of trouble."

"Having a film that provides a comprehensive understanding of the esports industry means I don't have to spend weeks doing fieldwork."

Although the advertising and marketing department had a large budget to support fieldwork, Meng Chang wasn't interested.

Because no matter how big the budget, it had nothing to do with him!

He just wanted to complete this promotional project quickly, get his commission, and didn't care about anything else.

The documentary was filmed in June 2010, about a year and a half ago.

Meng Chang figured the esports environment and ecosystem shouldn't have changed too much in such a short time, right?

After reviewing the relevant materials, Meng Chang quickly identified several key "black spots" for this promotion.

The current esports industry was still in a chaotic state, with issues like player salary disputes, clubs exploiting players, poor treatment of lower-level players, difficult entry, and limited career prospects after retirement. These were all objective problems.

A quick search would turn up many similar news stories.

He just hadn't found much negative news about GPL, which he found a little disappointing, as he couldn't allude to it in the video.

But then he thought it was normal. GPL involved too much capital. Big companies like Shenhua Group were involved, and the sponsors were all wealthy. How could they allow negative news to leak and spread online?

It must have all been handled with public relations.

But that didn't affect Meng Chang's performance. The esports industry was generally similar, and even if GPL was doing better, it probably couldn't fundamentally change the industry's nature.

After careful consideration, Meng Chang found an excellent entry point among these key "black spots."

Past esports promotional videos had focused on the top of the pyramid, the small group of people who won world championships and achieved success.

For example, "Breaking the Cocoon" was about a former *Counter Terrorism Plan* professional player who had won a world championship. Recently, some media outlets wanted to make a documentary about FV club, showcasing their journey to winning the IOI Global Finals.

The content was easy to imagine: first introducing the professional players' humble origins, how their families didn't understand when they chose esports, how hard they worked to pursue their dreams, and finally the achievements they achieved…

These were all basic clichés.

Meng Chang wanted to do the opposite. He wouldn't film the people at the top of the pyramid, but the unknown professional players with poor results, or even the internet-addicted teenagers who dreamed of being pros but could never break in!

These people's lives were quite miserable.

A quick search online would turn up many similar reports.

Many professional players had extremely low salaries when they started. Forget about five insurances and one fund; even getting food was good enough. The training environment was also very poor. The training base was basically a large internet café.

Meng Chang also found some photos of older domestic clubs like H4 online. The players' living conditions were appalling.

And these were the lucky few who became professional players. What about those who couldn't?

People said the *gaokao* (national college entrance exam) was like a thousand troops crossing a single-plank bridge, but the road to esports was even more terrifying because the industry needed so few people.

Thinking of this, Meng Chang had a general idea and quickly wrote a rough outline.

Other promotional videos told stories of teenagers chasing their dreams and succeeding, but Meng Chang's promotional video would tell the story of teenagers chasing their dreams and failing!

…

The protagonist of the promotional video was a boy with a childish face.

The first scene was him playing GOG in a dim internet café, highly focused. In the game, the enemy was pressing the attack. He frantically operated, desperately fighting on his own high ground, but after a series of flashy operations, he was stunned by the opponent's skills and instantly killed. The bright red words "Defeat" appeared on the screen.

The boy was frustrated. He took off his headset and looked at the defeat screen in silence.

But then, the boy mustered his courage again, ready to start the next game and win it back.

Just then, a middle-aged man stood behind him and yanked him out of his seat.

"Dad?" The boy asked, surprised.

The middle-aged man was livid and dragged him home.

The second scene was the boy being dragged home by his father. Judging from the home environment, the conditions weren't good.

Father and son had a heated argument. The father's face turned red with anger, and he picked up a feather duster from the side, ready to hit him.

The boy was also furious and shouted, "Hit me, then!"

However, the father raised his hand, but suddenly slammed the feather duster on the ground and knelt down with a "plop."

"I'm begging you, okay? Go back to school and study hard, stop playing games…"

The boy didn't say anything, turned around, went back to his room, and slammed the door shut.

In the third scene, the boy took a few hundred yuan he stole from home and went to a big city alone, trying out at several clubs.

But the clubs refused him one after another. One of the managers said very sincerely, "Sorry, your strength doesn't meet our club's requirements. Esports may not be suitable for you. I suggest you reconsider."

The boy slept on a park bench, looking at the starry sky, his face still showing determination.

In the fourth scene, finally a club was willing to take him in as a youth trainee. No salary, but room and board were provided. The boy was very happy. He trained hard every day, watching the main team play training matches and discuss tactics, silently envying them, hoping that one day he could be like them, play games, and win championships.

In the fifth scene, the boy played his first match as a substitute, but he performed poorly and became a weak point. The screen kept showing him being killed.

After the game, he took the initiative to apologize to the manager, but the manager didn't say anything. From then on, he never got another chance to play.

He just kept waiting by the water cooler, and the teammates around him changed wave after wave.

Finally, the manager found him and told him to find another way.

In the sixth scene, the desperate boy returned home, expecting his father to be furious and beat him up, but his father didn't say anything, just silently prepared the meal and said he would find a way to ask someone to help him find a job tomorrow.

In the seventh scene, under the scorching sun, the boy carried bricks on a construction site.

His father came a long way to deliver water and food, feeling very sorry for him. The boy wiped his sweat with his dirty hands and smiled, saying he wasn't tired.

But after his father left, he looked at his father's back and, for some reason, thought of the scenes in the classroom, and tears flowed uncontrollably.

Those days he didn't cherish would never come back.

…

After writing the story outline, Meng Chang checked it from beginning to end and was very satisfied.

This was high-level trolling.

If Meng Chang forced himself to fabricate facts and shoot content that smeared the esports industry, that would definitely not work, because his agreement with President Pei explicitly prohibited such behavior.

But the content he was shooting now was all true!

These scenes should have been played out many times across the country.

Moreover, Meng Chang was filming with great restraint.

Unlike many traditional media outlets, he didn't confuse esports with playing games, and then demonize playing games as "internet addiction," portraying teenagers who liked to play games as pathological.

He was just objectively filming the hardships of the esports industry.

The boy's father didn't beat or scold him like other parents, and could be said to be very good to the boy. That kneeling was even more heartbreaking.

And the boy's insistence on his own way eventually led him to realize that his father was right.

There were so many people who liked to play games, but only a small percentage of them could be selected by clubs to become professional players; among this group, only a small percentage could become main players and get the chance to play; among the main players, only a small percentage could become star players and be known to the audience; among the star players, only a small percentage could win major championships and gain both fame and fortune.

In other words, the entire esports road was like a large filter, and the number of people who could survive at each stage was one in ten thousand.

And what happened to those who were eliminated?

Just like the video showed, they chose the wrong path, and the most precious years of their lives were wasted.

Of course, Meng Chang's intention wasn't to discriminate against working on a construction site.

As long as you could support yourself and earn a living, there was no distinction between high and low among occupations.

Meng Chang wanted to express that some occupations were chosen voluntarily, while others were accepted passively. And after failing on the esports road, voluntarily choosing a career basically became impossible, and one could only accept passively.

How tragic!

Moreover, Meng Chang would also give the audience enough hints in some details. For example, when filming the scene of club training, he would definitely shoot the club's internal conditions, including accommodation, meals, and so on.

If these contents were filmed at existing esports clubs, they would definitely not be happy, because this video was equivalent to airing their dirty laundry.

But it didn't matter, as long as he built a set according to the information he found online.

All the game footage in the promotional video would use GOG, because none of the other games had copyrights, and only GOG footage could be used freely.

And using GOG footage could also have an Area of Effect on GPL, which could be said to kill two birds with one stone!

After carefully revising the outline of the promotional video several times, Meng Chang stood up confidently and said to the other colleagues who were fishing, watching dramas, playing games, and sleeping, "Everyone, put aside what you're doing for a moment, something's coming!"

Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and looked over.

Meng Chang introduced the new promotional video in detail.

"This video will be called *Breaking the Cocoon Unsuccessfully*."

The reason for calling it "Breaking the Cocoon Unsuccessfully" was mainly to echo the documentary "Breaking the Cocoon" and remind all the young people who wanted to take the road of esports that they might not break out of the cocoon to become a butterfly, but might tie themselves up in a cocoon.

And whether you could become a butterfly or not depended on whether you were really a butterfly or just a caterpillar.

"What do you guys think?" Meng Chang looked around at everyone.

He was superficially asking for everyone's opinion, but Meng Chang had already made up his mind. Even if someone objected, he would definitely film it this way.

But everyone didn't raise any objections.

"It's good, no objections!"

"Then I'll start perfecting the details now."

"I'll find the location and choose the actors."

The entire advertising and marketing department instantly made a 180-degree turn. Before, everyone was like a flock of sheep scattered on the prairie grazing, but with Meng Chang's order, these sheep immediately formed a phalanx and began to goose-step!

Although he had a similar experience once before, Meng Chang still felt a little uncomfortable.

In his opinion, these colleagues presented two completely different characteristics at the same time.

The people he had contacted in his previous work could often be simply divided into two types: workaholics and loafers.

The former were serious and responsible for their work, but they could never finish their work and would never be seen loafing on the job during working hours; while the other type of loafer would seize every opportunity to loaf on the job, and even if he was assigned a task, he would complete it slowly for a long time, with no efficiency whatsoever.

But these colleagues in the advertising and marketing department were neither workaholics nor loafers. If you said they were diligent, they would be playing games, sleeping, and never take the initiative to find work when there was no work; if you said they were lazy, they would be extremely efficient when there was real work.

But Meng Chang didn't have much of an opinion.

These people were efficient at work, could quickly complete their tasks, ensure that they could get high commissions, and wouldn't have any questions about their plans. In every way, they were perfect subordinates.

Thinking of this, Meng Chang stopped dwelling on the matter and continued to happily look forward to his commission this month.

There was a wave of reverse publicity from Rabbit Tail Live, and another wave of reverse publicity from GPL. With these two effects combined, wouldn't the commission be directly maxed out?

Although the promotional plan for Tengda's physical industry was a bit of a failure at the beginning, these two later plans would offset it, and a high commission was still guaranteed!

Meng Chang was already a little impatient.