124: Chapter 124 Qin Mo's Foresight

As Kim Hyuk-byung's words echoed, syllable by syllable, within the conference room.

Almost instantly.

The confidence on Pony Ma's face froze.

Kim Hyuk-byung's voice continued.

"In other words."

"crossfire currently has no substantive relationship with Smilegate. Smilegate is merely the development team; the game's copyright, operational rights, and control over updates are all in the hands of Langchao Group."

"If Langchao Group wishes, they could completely withdraw crossfire from Smilegate at any time, without needing to leave us a single line of code."

"It is only because the game development team is here with us, and we are familiar with the game, that any updates and optimizations can be completed the fastest, which is why they have kept us responsible for daily maintenance."

After listening to Kim Hyuk-byung's words, Pony Ma's face had turned somewhat pale.

He glanced at Sun Qiang beside him, who picked up the document and flipped through it quickly.

Inside was a copy of the crossfire copyright transfer agreement, in both Chinese and Korean. Every page was stamped with official seals and legal certifications, and the signing date was clearly written: two months before the open beta of crossfire.

Having confirmed the information.

Sun Qiang, whose face had also turned ugly, put down the document and nodded at Pony Ma.

At the time this contract was signed, neither alliance of valiant arms nor crossfire had even been announced to the public!

Subsequently.

Pony Ma and Sun Qiang exchanged a glance, and both saw a hint of helplessness in the other's eyes.

They had originally thought.

Tencent's actions were quite secretive and had not been discovered by Smilegate or Langchao Group at all.

But they had not expected that Qin Mo did not need to discover it at all.

Long before the open beta of crossfire, he had already anticipated Tencent and Pony Ma's moves, taking crossfire into his hands early on.

Tencent's recent move to secretly acquire shares of Smilegate had been completely useless!

Seeing the two men silent, the people from Smilegate naturally did not interrupt.

After a while.

Sun Qiang spoke slowly, his voice sounding much drier than before.

"Buying out all the copyrights before the open beta."

He paused.

"Qin Mo had absolute confidence in crossfire from the very beginning."

"Back then, even when we licensed alliance of valiant arms, we didn't have the confidence to spend a large sum of money to buy it out directly."

"That is because."

"A game, no matter how good it looks before the open beta, has the potential to fail. If the game fails after we buy it out, Tencent would suffer huge losses."

Sun Qiang leaned back in his chair, a look of self-mockery on his face.

"So, ever since Tencent started its rise, we have never bought out any game before its open beta."

"We only consider buying out a game after it has proven its market potential and its ability to make money."

"Let alone us, almost no game company in the world would spend a large sum of money to buy out a game before its open beta."

"How did he dare to do that?"

Listening to Sun Qiang's words, Pony Ma had leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, his voice had regained some calmness, and he let out a long sigh.

"With such courage, Tencent's loss is not unjust."

"This time, we have indeed lost, and we have lost completely."

Pony Ma admitted defeat, not because the acquisition failed, but because while he was still thinking about how to use capital to turn the tables, Qin Mo had long since blocked all paths to a comeback.

Afterwards.

Because the copyright for crossfire was not in the hands of Smilegate, acquiring Smilegate lost its meaning. Pony Ma did not stay at Smilegate for too long and left with his team that afternoon.

However.

Tencent was, after all, an entity that Smilegate dared not offend.

In the end.

They repurchased the shares that had been secretly acquired from Tencent at a price 30% higher than the market value, along with the shares that Tencent already held, which helped make up for much of Tencent's losses on alliance of valiant arms.

And from this moment on.

Smilegate and Tencent only had the licensing relationship for alliance of valiant arms left.

That evening, Pony Ma boarded the flight back to Great Xia.

...

Pony Ma had thought that his actions this time were very secretive and had not been discovered.

But he had not expected.

The next morning, a trending topic suddenly appeared on the Great Xia internet.

"Tencent wants to acquire Smilegate!"

The content of the trending topic was a leak from an insider, stating that Pony Ma had personally gone to Smilegate to discuss an acquisition, hoping to take down crossfire that way.

After this trending topic appeared, a large number of players immediately flooded the comment section.

However, at first.

Most comments were still skeptical. Some felt that Pony Ma wouldn't do something so demeaning; having just messed up alliance of valiant arms, flying to South Korea to try and acquire Smilegate didn't make sense—it was too shameless.

But soon.

A real-life video was uploaded to the internet.

In the footage, which was outside the Smilegate headquarters building, one could clearly see Pony Ma and Sun Qiang's group getting out of a black commercial vehicle and being welcomed into the building by several Smilegate executives. The filming time was yesterday afternoon.

Immediately after.

Someone else released even more explosive photos, showing Pony Ma sitting opposite the president of Smilegate, talking about something.

Although the second photo was quickly deleted, it had already been saved by many netizens. This photo had been secretly taken by Kim Seok-jin; when he saw Pony Ma at Smilegate, he had already informed Qin Mo of the news.

As the videos and photos were exposed one after another, no one doubted the authenticity of the matter anymore.

The comment section exploded completely.

"Pony Ma actually did this kind of thing; it's too shameless."

"Trying to secretly acquire Smilegate to snatch crossfire away from Langchao Group?"

"It looks like Tencent is determined to get crossfire and Smilegate; Pony Ma actually went there in person."

Although there was a lot of mockery, more of the comments were worried.

After all, everyone knows Tencent's reputation for operating games. If crossfire really fell into Tencent's hands, there would probably be no more events giving away golden weapons.

And the games under Langchao Group, whether it's league of legends or crossfire, have never been stingy.

Soon.

Just half an hour later, the official crossfire Weibo account issued a statement.

"The copyright for crossfire has been fully bought out by Langchao Group since before the open beta. The game's operation and updates will not be affected by any third party. Thank you for your care and support, players. Please enjoy playing with peace of mind."

In just a few short sentences, the comment section instantly turned from worry into laughter.

Then came the undisguised mockery of Tencent.

"So the copyright had already been acquired by Boss Qin long ago. Pony Ma made a wasted trip to South Korea."

"Langchao Group bought out the copyright so long in advance; they must have been guarding against this exact move."

"Hahahaha, Boss Ma, spending billions in South Korea to buy a game you looked down on initially, hahaha, and you can't even buy it!"

For a time.

Similar mocking comments flooded in, and Tencent remained unusually silent, issuing no further response.

This trending topic brought some amusement to the otherwise calm Great Xia internet for a few days, before it quickly returned to peace.

And in places where many people had not noticed, in the sinking market.

A piece of software that had been launched for less than twenty days already had over 500,000 core users.