109: Chapter 109 Is Crossfire an obsolete product?

For a period after that, Tencent Group continued to do its utmost to promote the upcoming second launch of alliance of valiant arms.

Various media outlets that had been paid off and many streamers across the entire internet were fervently praising this game almost every day.

On the home page recommendation slots of Douyu and Huya, the promotional banners for alliance of valiant arms hung for a full week without ever being taken down.

Clicking into any game category, the top-ranked live streams were almost all broadcasting footage from the closed beta server of alliance of valiant arms.

Even though the players had not yet experienced it, this game seemed to have already been crowned with the title of the most fun shooter game in history.

Whether it was crossfire or CS, or even many single-player shooter games, none of them could compare to this alliance of valiant arms.

Its unique Escort Mode was blindly hyped by countless streamers as if it were the most fun mode in any shooter game.

Some streamers said in their broadcasts that once you play a round of Escort Mode, there is no going back; playing standard Team Deathmatch afterward feels like playing with toy guns.

Some media outlets published review articles with titles that bluntly stated, "alliance of valiant arms, redefining shooter games!"

The comments below were unanimously in agreement.

Meanwhile, during this period, because more and more players were playing crossfire, quite a few people online began to speak up for crossfire and questioned alliance of valiant arms.

However, amidst Tencent Group's frantic promotion of alliance of valiant arms, these voices hardly received much attention.

After all, Tencent Group's promotional resources were immense.

With streamers from the two major streaming platforms, Douyu and Huya, collectively endorsing it, coupled with the continuously increasing Q-coin promotions and the hype from major media outlets, the anticipation for alliance of valiant arms was pushed to the absolute maximum.

For a while, if you opened any gaming forum, at least half of the posts on the front page were discussing just how fun the Escort Mode of alliance of valiant arms was.

… Soon.

More than twenty days had passed since the first public beta of the two games, and with only one week left, alliance of valiant arms was set to relaunch.

And the Zombie Mode for crossfire would also go live on the same day.

On that day, a negative trending search topic about crossfire swept across the entire internet: "Is crossfire a cast-off product of alliance of valiant arms?"

The trending topic consisted of only a few simple words, yet it attracted the attention of the entire internet.

Many people who saw the trending topic thought it was pure rumors, but upon clicking it, they discovered that the content was an interview video featuring the president of Tencent Group's game division.

Vice President Chen Yongnian faced the camera with a very confident expression.

"We have absolute confidence in alliance of valiant arms."

"The data for this game during its testing period in South Korea was quite impressive. Escort Mode is a brand-new, original gameplay mode of ours, and it has no rivals in the shooter game field."

The earlier part of the interview was all praise for alliance of valiant arms from within Tencent Group.

However, just as the interview reached the halfway point, Vice President Chen Yongnian seemingly inadvertently brought up a matter.

"Back when we went to South Korea to negotiate the licensing, Smilegate actually wanted us to license crossfire along with it."

He smiled, his tone carrying a touch of nonchalance.

"Because Smilegate themselves didn't think highly of crossfire, feeling that no one would even play this game. They had internally evaluated it and concluded that if crossfire wasn't bundled with alliance of valiant arms, they wouldn't be able to find a publisher at all."

"Therefore, from the very beginning, crossfire existed as a game that had been cast off by Smilegate; it was an accessory to alliance of valiant arms."

"From start to finish, Smilegate's expectations for this game were far lower than those for alliance of valiant arms."

Speaking of this, Vice President Chen Yongnian paused, then added another sentence.

"And in the end, because Langchao Group lacked the ability to compete with Tencent Group, they could only license this cast-off product and did not compete with us for alliance of valiant arms."

"So tell me, how is crossfire supposed to compare to alliance of valiant arms?"

The interview segment ended there.

The top comment under the trending topic was a response someone had received via email after contacting Smilegate.

The content of the feedback was very simple.

What was said in the interview was true; Smilegate indeed did not think highly of crossfire at the beginning and had forcibly tied crossfire to alliance of valiant arms, wanting to bundle them for sale to Tencent Group.

A netizen studying abroad in South Korea even dug up screenshots of Smilegate's internal project initiation documents from back then, which clearly stated that crossfire's positioning was a "B-level project," while alliance of valiant arms was an "S-level project."

Once this trending topic came out, it instantly ignited the entire internet.

Only a few hours later, countless people on gaming communities across all major platforms on the internet were discussing and paying attention to it.

"crossfire is actually an accessory to alliance of valiant arms? Even Smilegate thinks crossfire isn't good and forced a bundle sale?"

"If a cast-off product is this fun, then how exaggerated must alliance of valiant arms be?"

"This is just like a free gift that comes with buying a car; no matter how good the gift is, can it compare to the actual product?"

For a time, player anticipation for alliance of valiant arms was maxed out.

And after Smilegate confirmed that crossfire was a cast-off product of alliance of valiant arms, those players who had originally spoken up for crossfire became a bit unconfident.

After all, that was the game developer.

Smilegate, having developed crossfire, regarded crossfire as a cast-off product of alliance of valiant arms, which indicated that the reputation of alliance of valiant arms within Smilegate was quite high.

Players in South Korea also confirmed this on forums, saying that during the Korean server testing, alliance of valiant arms was indeed Smilegate's most core project, with all resources tilted towards it, while crossfire was just made on the side.

crossfire.

It was indeed just a game that had been cast off.

After this trending topic appeared, for a time, basically all shooter game players on the internet felt that crossfire definitely could not compare to alliance of valiant arms.

The time of the second launch of alliance of valiant arms would be the time of crossfire's defeat.

But crossfire remained unconcerned with the outside discussion.

It was just that on that same evening, the official blog posted a new announcement.

"On the day Zombie Mode goes live, be online at 3:30 PM and play one round of Zombie Mode to receive a golden melee weapon."

The weapon would be a random choice between a knife and a Kukri.

And the names of these two melee weapons were changed to Azure Steel and Dragon Scale.

The original artwork for the two weapons was posted below the announcement; just looking at them was quite enticing.

Qin Mo was very clear that under the promotional bombardment from Tencent Group, the Zombie Mode of crossfire was not viewed favorably by people at all, and there would definitely be many players that day who wouldn't even click to open this new mode.

If they didn't play it, they naturally wouldn't know the features of this mode.

Therefore, he only needed to get the players to enter this mode and play.

As long as they came in, he would leave the rest to the game itself.

He remembered very clearly that in his past life, every year's punctual online event for crossfire could cause a huge reaction and achieve great results.

As for how many of those players who originally came just for the rewards ended up staying in the game, only the backend data knew that number.

And this time, Azure Steel and Dragon Scale were the hooks.

After the announcement was posted, there were finally some different discussions in the comment section.

"Golden Kukri? This knife is too handsome; it looks even better than the ones sold in the shop."

"Just being online at 3:30 PM gets it for free; isn't this more cost-effective than Tencent Group giving away Q-coins? This Dragon Scale would cost at least over a hundred if it were in the shop, right?"

"Anyway, logging in at 3:30 PM to claim a reward doesn't hinder playing alliance of valiant arms."

"To be fair, Langchao Group's events are truly generous; giving away legendary skins during Battle Night and golden weapons for Zombie Mode is much more impressive than Tencent Group's side."

"What's the use of saying all this? alliance of valiant arms has better graphics and new gameplay, and crossfire is a cast-off product. I will definitely mainly play alliance of valiant arms; I'll just claim the reward at 3:30 PM and come back."

Time quickly arrived at one week later.

On this day, crossfire updated to Zombie Mode.

And alliance of valiant arms, after being optimized, had been adapted to most internet cafes across the country without compromising most of its image quality.

The launch time for alliance of valiant arms and the launch time for crossfire after its update were both chosen for 10:00 AM.

From the very beginning, the two games chose to go head-to-head, and neither side backed down.

This time was no exception.