197: Chapter 197: The Incredible Popularity Brought by the Viewing Rewards!

"Is this for real?"

"Holy crap, what the hell? The game updated halfway through the match?"

"I'm dying of laughter. What kind of amateur operation is this? Updating the seasonal version halfway through a match? Checking in to commemorate this; I feel like this is going to become an iconic moment."

"Good grief, can the match even continue today?"

"Wait, I have to ask, what right does this so-called Penguin E-sports League have to mock league of legends matches? At least they never perform seasonal game updates in the middle of a match!"

Due to the game pause, countless angry viewers and those just looking for entertainment flooded major social media platforms to ruthlessly bash this dota 2 Opening Match.

Under the Weibo trending topics, hundreds of thousands of comments appeared in just half an hour.

It wasn't just in Great Xia.

Major overseas gaming communities were also furiously criticizing the professionalism of the dota 2 match.

You have to realize.

Just over an hour ago, in order to step on the league of legends tournament, Tencent Group and Valve had just purchased a global trending topic regarding the professionalism of the dota 2 match.

But now, league of legends hadn't done anything yet; there was no response.

This dota 2 had already shot itself in the foot.

Performing a seasonal version update halfway through a match—I'm afraid there's nothing more amateurish than this.

...When the dota 2 match updated, inside Tencent Group, in the executive conference room.

Although they had made plenty of preparations and joined forces with many top global gaming companies, everyone in the upper management was very confident about this Penguin E-sports.

But faced with the first tournament truly launched within the Penguin E-sports League, the internal team at Tencent still placed great importance on this dota 2 Opening Match.

Ma had long since convened an internal Tencent meeting, preparing to watch the popularity of this Opening Match together.

At this moment, on the large screen in the corner of the conference room, the commentator had just announced a global viewership of 60 million.

"Sixty million, this number seems to have already surpassed the league of legends viewership record, right?"

"I didn't expect this first match to have such high popularity."

"With the watchability of dota 2 itself, I'm afraid the majority of these 60 million viewers will be retained."

At this moment, at the head of the round table, looking at the real-time viewer data on the large screen to the side, Ma was also very satisfied.

Sun Qiang, sitting beside him, also spoke up.

"Although today's matches are all one-sided stomps and might not be that exciting, they should still be able to attract quite a few viewers."

"And if the subsequent matches see these two teams pull off a reverse sweep like the league of legends Opening Match did, then even more people will pay attention."

Ma nodded while speaking.

"Regardless, as long as the match goes smoothly, it's fine. Our time was too short this time; to be able to organize the tournament like this is already quite good."

"However."

"We have viewing rewards for the first three days of the tournament."

"By the fourth day, the match data without viewing activities will become the key factor for those first-tier sponsors and other capital to decide on their investment levels."

"But looking at the current data, even if the match data at that time can't compare to league of legends, it won't be too bad."

While chatting and laughing, Ma's expression was quite relaxed.

In his view, behind the dota 2 tournament was Tencent, Valve, and an entire monopoly of top-tier resources and promotional methods. As long as the watchability of the match itself wasn't too poor, it could succeed even if it only reached half of league of legends.

Not to mention, they had conducted internal research. The excitement level of dota 2 matches wouldn't be much worse than league of legends.

So in their eyes, this dota 2 match would definitely be able to leverage their promotional strength and become a globally popular e-sports tournament.

Unless there was a world of difference in the watchability of the two games, that would be the only thing to cause the failure of the dota 2 tournament.

However, in Tencent's view, this was impossible.

Meanwhile, just as Ma's lips curled up, imagining his Penguin E-sports League completely pushing the league of legends tournament out of the market, and Qin Mo eventually having to come and beg him.

A 'beep' was heard. On the live broadcast screen in front of him, a game update notification popped up.

Watching this scene, the expressions of Ma and the other executives in the conference room instantly froze on their faces.

The next second, a roar was heard from Ma.

"Get Braden here! What the hell is dota 2 doing!"

...This pause lasted for a full two hours.

Because there was too much content in the update, even the professional players and commentators had to spend a significant amount of time loading the brand-new game content.

And after restarting, the game ended in just twenty minutes, with the team that reached match point first still winning the match. Three to zero.

The dota 2 Global Finals Opening Match, until it finally ended, was still described as "boring" on the internet.

And because the pause time was too long, a large number of viewers were lost during the interval. By the time the third game finished, the number of global viewers had dropped from the previous 60 million to less than 30 million!

These viewers were afraid that since they had finished watching two games, if they didn't watch the last one, they wouldn't get the rewards, so they persisted.

However, that evening, Penguin E-sports League released a statement. They announced that as long as viewers watched the first two games in their entirety, they could claim different viewing rewards based on their region, which somewhat salvaged some reputation.

For the next two days, because there were still viewing rewards, the popularity of the dota 2 match remained high, with the number of global viewers exceeding 50 million each day, reaching the peak that league of legends tournaments had achieved so far.

And almost every day, the trending topic process remained unchanged.

A few hours before the match started, trending topics about the dota 2 tournament would appear.

After the match started, there would be many stiff trending topics about match plays.

However, it was obvious that although these highlight reels looked like they had rapidly increasing view counts, there weren't many comments; one look and you could tell the view counts were bought.

However, the reputation regarding the dota 2 match did indeed have some changes by the third day.

The matches of the first two days were all one-sided stomps, ending quickly at 3-0. But by the third day, the match was truly played to the full extent by both teams.

Although it wasn't the most exciting reverse sweep, both teams' strength levels were about the same, so there was back-and-forth action. After trading two games each, the final winner was decided in the fifth decisive game.

Similarly, in the fifth decisive game, Tencent tried to copy the style and came up with some kind of "decisive game battle song," but because the preparation time for the tournament was too short, the quality and listening experience of their battle song couldn't hold a candle to league of legends.

And after this match ended, a brand new entry was pushed by Tencent to major global social media platforms.

"dota 2 match plays all five games, completely shedding the boring label!"

Under this entry, there were indeed quite a few comments from viewers echoing it.

"Yeah, right, it seems to be a bit better to watch than the matches from the first two days."

"Mhm, yeah, it's good, probably, maybe, perhaps, roughly."

"The theory of relativity of watchability; compared to the matches of the first two days, today's match was quite good, but I'll say it again: I don't understand it, I'll watch it next time."

"Actually, today's final match had a hint of passion. After watching for three days, I can finally understand it a little bit. I should still watch the subsequent matches, probably."

Although many comments were somewhat perfunctory, compared to the matches of the first two days, today's match was indeed much more watchable.

Plus, after watching for three days and with the various explanations from the commentators, some gamers finally understood some of the logic of dota 2 and could somewhat understand it.

But how much stickiness the dota 2 match actually had for these viewers would have to wait until the next day, after the viewing activity rewards were gone, to be determined.

Back then, the league of legends Great Xia region Opening Match viewer count exceeded 45 million; this was the data when there were viewing rewards.

And after an interval of one day, the viewer count for the second match of the Great Xia region still reached the 40 million mark.

This was enough to show how exaggerated the stickiness of the league of legends tournament was.

And dota 2 not only extended the viewing reward activity to three days.

Over three days, the average number of viewers per day exceeded 55 million.

The last day's match was even a quite exciting match that went the full five games.

So in Tencent's eyes, the data for this fourth day wouldn't be bad!