Chapter 154 You Won

More than half an hour later, Pei Qian arrived at Mingfu Family Banquet by car.

Because he had called ahead, they arranged a secluded private room in the back. A server had already brewed a pot of fine tea.

Pei Qian sat down and sized up Eric.

"Brother Eric, you seem to have lost a lot of weight."

"We have an old saying: health is the foundation of revolution. Work and rest are essential; you mustn't ruin your health."

Actually, Pei Qian meant: If you burn out, who will help me burn money?

Eric looked up at President Pei.

Although President Pei's hair was a bit messy, it didn't make him look listless at all. On the contrary, he gave off a relaxed and carefree feeling.

It was like on a battlefield, everyone else was in full armor, ready for battle, but the strategist was lightly waving a feather fan, yawning, and disheveled, as if he had just woken up.

Anyone could tell that this strategist was either out of his mind or truly awesome.

And President Pei was clearly the latter.

Eric sighed, "I'm ashamed to say that I can't match President Pei's mentality."

After taking over as the head of Greater China for IOI, he had been working tirelessly, often working overtime with Zhao Xuming and his subordinates until dawn on weekends.

Of course, it wasn't that Eric was particularly diligent, but he was under a lot of pressure and couldn't rest easy even if he wanted to.

But looking at President Pei, he still rested on weekends as usual, without any psychological pressure, as if nothing had happened.

His mental state was far superior!

Although President Pei's advice for him to rest more had a mocking undertone, Eric had suffered complete defeats in their multiple encounters, so he naturally had no desire to argue.

Eric poured tea for both of them, "President Pei, although I didn't see you yesterday, I took the opportunity to take a look around Jingzhou."

"I didn't expect it to have changed so much since my last visit."

"Tengda Group is more than just a game company; it deserves respect both within and outside the gaming field."

"Although we're competitors, I have to admit that."

Pei Qian drank his tea, sensing that Eric's words had a hidden meaning.

Did it seem like he was criticizing someone indirectly?

Did Eric seem to have some complaints about his old client, Dayak Corporation?

On second thought, it made sense.

As an internal employee of Dayak Corporation, Eric certainly had access to more information than outsiders. Dayak Corporation's reputation was already terrible, and they had done many inhumane things. These internal employees probably saw it all.

Compared to Tengda, the contrast might indeed be stark.

Pei Qian didn't care what Eric thought, but the key was... Eric's dispirited look was a bad sign!

Eric, you have to cheer up!

If you're down, who will I have fun burning money with?

Pei Qian was silent for a moment and said, "Brother Eric, I think you might be under a lot of pressure lately. You need to rest."

Eric shook his head, "I don't need to rest."

"President Pei, there's no point in hiding anything at this point. Although I don't have any definite news, based on my understanding of the group, I think I can congratulate you in advance."

"The MOBA game battle between GOG and IOI, which started at the end of 2010, is finally coming to an end after a year and a half of fierce competition."

"President Pei, you've won."

Eric said it very seriously, but Pei Qian almost dropped his teacup in shock.

Don't say such terrifying things so seriously!

Do you know what you're saying!

Obviously, Eric had no idea what the simple words "GOG won" meant to President Pei.

If that really happened, then Pei Qian's quota for burning money through IOI would be gone!

In the future, he wouldn't be able to launch promotion activities for GOG as lavishly as he did now.

Once the market share reached a certain level, GOG would continue to expand to other player groups, and its influence would only grow, and its income would only increase.

At that point, the difficulty of losing money would increase by more than just one level for Pei Qian...

The thought of that situation was a bit despairing.

Of course, if it really came to that, Pei Qian believed that his clever self would always be able to come up with a solution.

But even if he came up with a solution, it would mean losing a means of burning money mindlessly.

How much brainpower would it take to come up with other ways to burn money to fill this expenditure gap?

This was simply terrible news!

Pei Qian silently took a sip of tea to calm himself down, then said, "I think it's a bit too early and too absolute to say that."

"It's not even close to the end."

"Although the market share of GOG and IOI in China is already quite different, in other overseas regions, IOI's situation is still... not bad."

Although Pei Qian had been very careful to restrain himself and prevent overseas regions from crowding out IOI's market share too much, GOG's model was a collaboration between Tengda and local companies, and Tengda didn't have complete control.

These local companies wanted to make money, expand their market share, and increase their influence, so they would naturally launch various promotion plans and seize IOI's market share at all costs.

Therefore, since opening up the overseas market, GOG had been constantly eroding IOI's market share, but it hadn't reached the exaggerated level of the domestic server.

But Pei Qian felt that IOI still had profits to be made, and Dayak Corporation couldn't possibly give up, right?

Eric shook his head slightly.

He felt that with President Pei's intelligence, he couldn't possibly fail to see this.

However, the traditional Chinese virtue was humility. Even if you had already won, you still had to say "I was just lucky."

Just like President Pei now, even though he was already confident of winning, he still had to say politely, "You still have a chance."

Eric drank his tea, too lazy to argue, and said what he wanted to say.

"President Pei, your previous methods already surprised me, but I didn't expect these methods during the Summer Promotion to be on another level."

"At the beginning of the Summer Promotion, you first released a seemingly not-too-outrageous plan to induce us to follow."

"If we gritted our teeth and followed, then you would immediately release a plan with even greater discounts, forcing us to continue to follow."

"I originally thought I had seen through your plan, and after discussing it with the senior management of the group, I decided not to follow, but I didn't expect it to not be over yet."

"I didn't expect that previous communication to have such a profound impact."

"You used this Summer Promotion activity to plant a nail in the hearts of the senior management of the group."

"Although the Summer Promotion activity didn't burn any more money, Tengda launched various offensives with ease during the entire Summer Promotion period, leaving a deep impression on the senior management of the group, and also making them realize the huge gap that already exists between GOG and IOI."

"There is also a huge gap between the group's determination and Tengda's."

"I said before that the group's spending must see clear returns. If a large amount of resources are invested but no results are seen, and the market share grows slowly or even stagnates, it is not impossible to give up."

"After all, for the group, although there is a lot of money, there are many other places to invest money in. There is no need to go down a dead end in such a cost-ineffective place."

"I previously estimated that the group's spending should be around $100 million, and the money directly spent and indirectly given up to promote IOI in the past year or so has far exceeded this number."

Hearing this, Pei Qian felt a little dazed.

Had... so much money been burned already?

Why didn't I feel it at all?

But on second thought, since GOG and IOI launched the money-burning war, whether it was holding competitions or doing activities, the open and secret struggles had never stopped, and the money burned was indeed difficult to calculate.

Moreover, Pei Qian noticed Eric's wording. Dayak Corporation had obviously included the "indirectly given up money" in the calculation.

For example, a skin could originally sell for 50, but it was sold for 20 at a discount. Although sales increased, the actual expected income might decrease.

There are two types of discounts: one is "small profits, large sales," which makes more money even with discounts; the other is "losing money to make a name," which makes less money but can be exchanged for word-of-mouth, market share, and player loyalty.

In the GOG and IOI money-burning war, the latter was obviously the vast majority of cases.

Because once the money-burning war started, the specific price reduction was determined by the party with the lower price. Even if Dayak Corporation and Riot Games knew that such discounts would reduce revenue, they could only helplessly follow suit.

Originally, IOI's skin prices were very high, selling for dozens or hundreds of yuan in China, but GOG repeatedly reduced them to a mere ten yuan at a discount, and revenue must have plummeted.

If Dayak Corporation included this part of the concession money, then the calculated number would be endless.

For Pei Qian, he never considered this part of the profit concession or the money given up, only the actual money he spent, so he didn't think he had spent much.

But for Dayak Corporation, the money that could have been earned but wasn't was naturally considered a loss.

Eric continued, "Most importantly, the senior management of the group clearly recognized a fact. That is, for a long time to come, maybe three, five, or even more years, it is almost impossible to let IOI defeat GOG and unify the global MOBA game market."

"And as long as Tengda continues to exist, the money-burning war cannot stop, and such revenue losses will continue."

"This is intolerable."

"As for defeating Tengda by burning money... previous attempts have failed, and the senior management of the group has no determination and confidence to put in more investment and gamble on something with a slim chance of success."

Pei Qian: "..."

He understood and realized his current precarious situation.

Dayak Corporation didn't want to give up Riot Games, and there was no reason to give up.

After all, Riot Games could still make money.

But Dayak Corporation didn't want to continue burning money for Riot Games, because it was meaningless. With no results expected for the next few years, how could Dayak Corporation have such patience?

An industry-renowned company was drained and dissected nine months after being acquired by Dayak Corporation, and Dayak Corporation only had such thoughts a year and a half after acquiring Riot Games, which was tolerant enough to be called a miracle.

Dayak Corporation was not going to abandon Riot Games, but to take back the money that it should have taken in the first place.

In other words, Dayak Corporation would no longer engage in any money-burning activities to seize the market with Tengda, but would use the current remaining market share to launch various pay-to-win consumption activities, squeezing the potential of the IOI game at all costs, so that the money it invested could be recovered as soon as possible.

Otherwise, when IOI's market share really dropped to a very low level, it would be impossible to squeeze out money even if they wanted to.

As for whether the senior management of Riot Games agreed? That didn't matter.

Riot Games was now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dayak Corporation and had no say. If any senior executives disagreed, they would only have one option: to resign.

Pei Qian couldn't sit still.

It's over!

Before coming, he was still quite optimistic, thinking that Eric might just want to come and catch up with him. Even if he encountered a little setback, he could overcome it quickly, and everyone would still happily burn money together.

However, after listening to Eric's words, Pei Qian realized the seriousness of the problem.

His good brother couldn't play with him anymore!