54: Chapter 54: Global Players' Passion Ignites

Pony stood up and handed his tablet to the secretary behind him.

"For the several response plans regarding Blizzard and NetEase, I want a detailed implementation plan from the Games Division within three days."

Vice President Chen Yongnian nodded. "It's already in preparation."

Pony walked to the door and paused. "Every new move by heroes of the storm must be reported to me immediately."

"Understood." Everyone nodded.

Pony opened the door and walked out.

The air conditioning in the hallway was blasting; he adjusted his cuffs and walked toward the elevators.

A young man who had been waiting outside the office hurried over.

He was wearing his Penguin employee badge, his hair was a bit messy, he was clutching a folder, and he looked anxious.

"Mr. Ma."

Pony stopped and frowned, feeling displeased.

The other person clearly didn't hold a high position; how dare he speak directly to him? Had he been watching too many TV dramas?

"Something up?"

"My name is Zheng Yue, and I work under Team Leader Liu Li."

Zheng Yue took a deep breath to steady himself.

He didn't see that because he had forcibly stopped Pony, Liu Li's expression on the side had changed.

But Zheng Yue continued to speak.

"I heard some of the content from the meeting just now. Is the company planning to focus all its energy on keeping an eye on heroes of the storm?"

Pony glanced at him. "Yes, what about it?"

"The threat from heroes of the storm is far less than that of league of legends."

Zheng Yue's voice was a bit urgent. "I've also studied the details on the official heroes of the storm website."

"heroes of the storm has changed too much—no gold, no last-hitting, shared team experience. These changes are too drastic; I'm afraid it won't be able to attract existing MOBA players at all."

"But I played league of legends all day today. Its simplifications hit the mark; it retained the core strategic gameplay while removing the frustrating parts."

"The potential of this game is much greater than that of heroes of the storm."

"It genuinely has the potential to surpass dota 2!"

Pony didn't speak immediately. He turned to look at Liu Li, who was following behind.

Liu Li pushed up his glasses and stepped forward. His expression was ugly, and he bowed his head apologetically.

"Mr. Ma, out of the twenty-one people in our group, only Zheng Yue thinks league of legends has potential; the other twenty think it's just average."

"Our conclusion is already in the report: league of legends has some potential, but not much. The upper limit of daily active users won't exceed 500,000."

"The conclusion is that this game cannot threaten dota 2."

Before Liu Li could finish, Zheng Yue shook his head vigorously, interrupting him. "That's because…"

"Most of the people in the testing group are hardcore dota players, and they also participated in the development of dota 2. There is no way they can objectively evaluate league of legends."

"After all, dota 2 is their baby."

"They like the complexity and hardcore nature of dota, but ordinary players aren't like them."

His voice echoed in the hallway. "I didn't play much dota before I graduated, so I can better see what kind of people this game can attract."

"I personally believe this game has huge potential!"

"Otherwise, that streamer Old C wouldn't be secretly playing this game after going offline!"

Pony looked at Zheng Yue, his expression unreadable. After a long while, he chuckled and shook his head.

"You mean…"

"Let Penguin give up on paying attention to heroes of the storm, which was created through the strong alliance between Blizzard and NetEase and backed by over a decade of classic IP."

He paused. "And instead…"

"Let us focus on league of legends, which was made by a producer we kicked out of Penguin and whose backer is too afraid to even go public?"

The several executives following behind him also laughed.

Liu Li breathed a sigh of relief. Pony had laughed, which meant he wasn't actually angry.

That made sense. One was the fledgling Riot Games, and league of legends was their first game. The other was a guaranteed hit from Blizzard and NetEase, plus various classic IP characters. Anyone would know how to choose.

Pony shook his head and spoke again. "You are too young. You don't know how powerful Blizzard is."

After saying that, he turned and walked toward the elevator.

Others followed behind him, passing by Zheng Yue one after another. Sun Qiang walked at the end and gave Liu Li a look. Liu Li nodded.

Once everyone entered the elevator, only Zheng Yue was left in the hallway.

Liu Li walked back and stood in front of Zheng Yue. "You don't need to come to work tomorrow."

"You saw it just now; I tried to fight for you on this, but your ideas are too far removed from the company's overall strategy."

Zheng Yue didn't speak. He took his employee badge off his neck, placed it on the table nearby, and turned to walk to the other end of the hallway.

After walking a few steps, his pace slowed, and he muttered to himself, "I'm not too young."

He didn't look back. "It's you who have been blinded by conventional experience."

Meanwhile, the trailer for heroes of the storm went completely viral, sparking a new round of heated discussion across the entire internet.

In the top five of the Weibo trending searches, Blizzard entering the MOBA scene occupied two spots.

The heroes of the storm trailer surged to number one on the trending searches. The alliance between Blizzard and NetEase ranked third.

Besides that, the entries for league of legends and dota 2 also surged to the forefront of the Weibo trending searches.

The comment sections exploded.

"Blizzard is making a MOBA themselves? And it's being published by NetEase? This lineup is too luxurious!"

"Characters from Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft are all in one game; just this IP lineup is enough for me to play for three years."

"dota 2 has an opponent; this is a real opponent."

"league of legends was just trashed, and now it's been intercepted by Blizzard; that's too miserable."

"The open beta dates for all three games are about the same; players have a choice now."

On overseas gaming forums, the discussion was just as intense. It was even more exaggerated than in the Great Xia.

After all, the name Blizzard has far, far more recognition among overseas players than Penguin.

Blizzard entering the field to make a MOBA game and using characters from their other games caused the discussion level to instantly skyrocket.

Even ignoring the domestic market, less than two hours after the release of the heroes of the storm trailer, overseas pre-registrations had already broken three million.

This number was even faster than dota 2 back in the day!

Coupled with the three games competing on the same stage, it further fueled the hype.

You have to know, on the official websites of the three games, their open beta dates are all about the same!

First, dota 2 would have its open beta in five months, then one month later heroes of the storm, and another month later league of legends.

None of the games chose to back down; they were going head-to-head! A three-way melee was about to begin!

Of course, after the heroes of the storm trailer appeared, both overseas and domestic players placed league of legends at the bottom of the three games.

In the eyes of countless players, heroes of the storm and dota 2 would definitely be locked in a fierce battle, and no one could say for sure who would achieve the final victory and have the highest daily active users.

As for league of legends, although its closed beta reputation was good, against heroes of the storm and dota 2, it would likely just become cannon fodder.

Meanwhile, at Inspur Technology, Qin Mo leaned back in his chair. On the large screen in front of him, the final frame of the heroes of the storm trailer was frozen.

Zhao Lei stood beside him, his brows knit together. His complexion had turned somewhat pale.

"Blizzard entering the scene themselves, with NetEase as the agent—this lineup is too exaggerated."

"I am a Blizzard player myself; seeing so many characters that will appear in heroes of the storm, I want to try this game too."

He rubbed his hands together. "And, I just checked the overseas data. Two hours after the trailer for heroes of the storm was released, overseas pre-registrations have already broken three million, which is faster than dota 2."

"Our league of legends pre-registrations, with the help of Old C's popularity, are only a bit over five million, and they've caught up to nearly half that in less than a few hours."

"And those classic Blizzard characters—their fan base alone is something we can't compare with."

"Are we really not considering changing the open beta date for league of legends?"

Because the development pipeline for league of legends had been optimized by Qin Mo using his experience from his previous life, and he had even participated in some core coding, the development speed was quite fast, allowing it to enter open beta shortly after dota 2.

Although they encountered some problems during the closed beta, the overall open beta time would not be delayed too much.

But listening to Zhao Lei's words, Qin Mo just opened his phone and looked at the trending search entries.

Memories from his past life surfaced in his mind.

Back then, after the heroes of the storm promotional video was released, it instantly shocked countless players and was believed by many to potentially surpass the then-thriving league of legends.

But in the end, just half a year after the game's open beta, people had already started to forget it.

From beginning to end, it never even caught a glimpse of league of legends' exhaust.

From its birth to its demise, heroes of the storm steadily declined amidst the constant shouts of "It's going to be a hit, it's going to be a hit."

"The Storm is going to be a hit" even became a meme in the Blizzard player community.

Thinking of this, Qin Mo put down his phone and slowly shook his head at Zhao Lei.

"Proceed with the open beta as originally planned."

"We'll go head-to-head with them."

"Whether it's dota 2 or heroes of the storm, neither is anything to fear."

At this point, Qin Mo seemed to have thought of something. "This closed beta for league of legends will be very short."

"On the day it ends, don't forget to announce our esports plan."