102: Chapter 102: Two Games Soon to Be Released

The hype surrounding the launch of the esports tournament completely calmed down in less than a week.

Apart from the teams led by high-traffic streamers on Douyin, which still had a steady audience watching every match, the other players and teams received almost no attention.

Just as the hype for the league of legends esports launch was gradually fading, the popularity of two other games was rising rapidly.

These were crossfire and alliance of valiant arms, both of which were about to launch.

Half a month before the open beta, Douyin and Tencent had already begun their promotional offensives for these two games.

Leveraging Douyin's recommendation algorithm, gameplay videos of crossfire were constantly being shown to potential player groups, and the discussion in the comments sections was quite heated.

"It looks pretty interesting, the headshot feeling is very satisfying."

"What is Ghost Mode? Wow, you can turn invisible?"

"Did a monster just flash across the screen? What mode is that?"

"It's probably the Zombie Mode from CS; it's not that interesting. Even CS:GO has abandoned this mode. For shooter games, it's really about how the competitive mode is designed."

Beyond crossfire, Tencent's promotional campaign was even more exaggerated.

Utilizing its own ecosystem, they rolled out a full-scale campaign, including pop-ups in their chat software, cross-promotion events with their other games, and homepage placement in major app stores.

The number of pre-registrations for alliance of valiant arms quickly exceeded five million.

Because these two games were only launching their open beta in Great Xia and not releasing globally simultaneously like dota 2 and heroes of the storm had, it was naturally impossible for them to have the exaggerated influence of a global player base.

Back then, before the open betas of dota 2 and heroes of the storm, global pre-registration numbers had exceeded fifty million.

But that was the global, total market pre-registration figure. For a single domestic shooter game market, five million was already a quite impressive number.

A week before the open beta, Tencent's official blog released the latest promotional event, with unprecedented scale.

On the day of the open beta, anyone who logged into the game and completed one match would be directly gifted a cash reward of 30 Q-Coins, along with a massive amount of cross-promotion rewards for their other games.

This news instantly shot to the top of the trending topics.

This was real, hard cash—thirty yuan. Although it didn't seem like much, for many students, thirty yuan was enough for several meals at the school cafeteria, or half a day's worth of internet fees at an internet cafe.

And the student demographic, who didn't have much pocket money, was precisely the main target audience for shooter games.

The reason CS was able to be so popular in the country for so many years was largely due to its low system requirements, allowing students' old computers to run it.

Within just one day of this event launching, the number of pre-registrations for alliance of valiant arms exceeded twenty million.

Meanwhile, the number of pre-registrations on the official crossfire website was only a little over three million.

Discussions on trending topics grew, and the comment sections were buzzing with speculation.

"I have to say, even though both are doing promotions, Douyin's promotional efforts still can't compare to Tencent and Q-Coins."

"Even if Douyin also gave out money, the same thirty yuan, I'm afraid there wouldn't be so many people pre-registering. Douyin doesn't have its own currency system, and many people are afraid of the hassle and can't be bothered."

"Tencent is different; they distribute Q-Coins, which can be claimed with one click from your account without requiring the user to take any extra steps."

"Q-Coins are hard currency themselves; they can be used to top up games or buy skins. They are no different from cash."

"Looking at it this way, with alliance of valiant arms having over twenty million pre-registrations and crossfire having less than three million, I'm afraid crossfire will be crushed on the very first day."

Some people also speculated that crossfire would surely have a countermeasure.

After all, the pre-registration numbers for the two games were already several times apart. If this trend continued, on the first day of the open beta, the number of players for crossfire would likely be crushed by alliance of valiant arms to the point where they wouldn't even be able to find a match.

But strangely, crossfire still hadn't launched any events. It was still just using Douyin for normal promotion.

Three days before the open beta, the pre-registration count for alliance of valiant arms continued to climb, reaching twenty-three million.

Meanwhile, the pre-registration count on the official crossfire website was only five million.

On this very day, a negative trending topic about crossfire brought Langchao Group's inaction into the spotlight.

The trending topic consisted of only a single sentence, but it instantly sparked discussion among countless players: "crossfire has been half-abandoned by Langchao Group, how can it compete with alliance of valiant arms?"

The content of the trending topic was also very simple. It analyzed the promotional investment in both games, pointing out that alliance of valiant arms benefited from the Tencent ecosystem and the distribution of Q-Coins, treating it completely like their own beloved child.

As for crossfire? Aside from Douyin continuously pushing videos, almost no other activities had been launched.

This kind of behavior was not uncommon in the Great Xia gaming circle. Games that were half-abandoned or barely licensed often received this treatment before their open beta, indicating that the game was not valued by the company and would not receive any updates or optimizations later on, making a server shutdown highly probable.

Therefore, after this trending topic appeared, the comments became almost instantly one-sided.

"They can't even be bothered to host a single event; crossfire is clearly preparing to just give up completely."

"Five million versus twenty-three million, has crossfire really been abandoned by Langchao Group? That shouldn't be right. Why did Qin Mo go on stage to announce this game? He must have valued it."

"It means he valued it at the time, but after a month of testing, they realized it had no potential and gave up on it. Is this simple question really that hard to understand?"

"What a pity. I originally wanted to try both, but looking at crossfire now, it might shut down shortly after the open beta. It's a waste of time."

Many players who originally wanted to try crossfire also started to back out. After all, it now seemed like crossfire was not valued at all within Langchao Group, with only a mere five million pre-registrations, which was completely incomparable to the twenty-three million for alliance of valiant arms.

Just when countless players thought that the situation for crossfire on the first day of its open beta was set, that night, the official crossfire blog posted a new announcement.

It wasn't long, just a few lines: "On the first day of the crossfire open beta, log in and complete one match to receive a league of legends Legendary Skin Chest."

"The chest contains multiple legendary-tier skins from the entire league of legends series, and you will randomly receive one of them."

"Log in and complete a match to receive it; no extra conditions required."

Once this event announcement was released, within a single day, the number of crossfire pre-registrations skyrocketed by twenty million! It instantly overtook alliance of valiant arms with a pre-registration count of twenty-five million!

At this point, many players finally recalled just how much scale and influence league of legends had reached; league of legends had already reached twenty million users just one month after its open beta.

Now, it was almost three months since its open beta. During this period, the Teamfight Tactics mode launched by league of legends had attracted a large number of players who didn't play MOBA games, and derivative works were constantly breaking into the mainstream.

The originally fan-made "La La La Demacia" had officially formed a team, preparing to produce higher-quality "Xiong Bing Tuan" anime. The champion Yasuo had even become a cultural symbol.

Although league of legends hadn't continued to announce daily active users, only stating that daily active users remained in a growth phase, it had been growing from twenty million for nearly two months up to now.

And judging from the skyrocketing pre-registration numbers for crossfire, the number of domestic players for league of legends had reached at least twenty million, and combined with overseas, it was likely approaching forty million!

No wonder Langchao Group hadn't made any big moves before; it turned out that they only needed to collaborate with the current hottest game, league of legends, and crossfire would have no fear of lacking attention!

And alliance of valiant arms, despite Tencent's all-out promotion, couldn't compare to a single collaboration with league of legends.

After this event announcement, many players who wanted to try crossfire breathed a sigh of relief; it turned out the game hadn't been abandoned.

Finally, under the anticipation of countless players, the last few days passed in a flash. crossfire and alliance of valiant arms—the two games officially entered open beta on the same day, at the same time!