74: Chapter 74: The Night of Battle is Approaching!

Just as players from both sides were arguing incessantly, another week passed.

The national internet cafe game popularity rankings, along with the Baidu and Google indices, were updated once again.

And this time, league of legends remained in first place; dota 2 still hadn't managed to overtake it.

The gap in ratios and data was even larger than the previous week.

Meanwhile, over the course of that week, more and more ordinary players began voluntarily filming live videos of internet cafes near their homes.

In an internet cafe in Shucheng, at three in the afternoon, over a hundred computers were occupied.

The person filming swept the camera from the first row to the last.

In the footage, over seventy percent of the screens showed the league of legends client. The rest were dota 2 and other games.

The video caption read: "I live nearby. This internet cafe has been like this ever since league of legends entered open beta; before that, it was all dota 2."

As more and more players filmed videos to confirm it, the fact that league of legends' market share in internet cafes had surpassed dota 2 was completely solidified and could no longer be refuted.

After all, now, any doubting player only needed to go downstairs and check a random internet cafe to see that the market share in internet cafes was definitely in favor of league of legends over dota 2.

Consequently, during this week, the voices of dota 2 players questioning the internet cafe market share of league of legends had dwindled.

After all, no matter how many smear pieces Tencent Group planted, as more players visited internet cafes, the truth couldn't be hidden.

And on the afternoon that the week's internet cafe market share figures were released, a new video was uploaded to the internet.

The content of the video was almost identical to the previous one about "idle farming data in internet cafes," except for a difference in length. Even the uploader was the same person.

The first half of the footage showed the same internet cafe at the same time before opening. The computer screens were indeed all displaying the league of legends client.

This content was the entirety of what had previously been on the trending lists, but in this video, the footage didn't end there; there was a second half.

As the camera continued to record, a few staff members walked up to each computer, exited league of legends, and then logged into dota 2.

Although the filming didn't continue, it was easy to imagine that before long, these computers would likely all be logged into dota 2.

At first, quite a few people were confused about what the video meant, but upon seeing the uploader's title, they instantly understood the whole story.

The title of this video was just one sentence: "Tencent Group people, please settle the final payment."

In the first comment, the blogger even exposed that Tencent Group's outsourced marketing company had hired this group of people to book many internet cafes across the country to idle dota 2.

Last week, they had asked him to film a video switching it to league of legends, deliberately making him post a smear piece.

But to this day, they hadn't paid him the final installment. Fortunately, the blogger had filmed an extra segment back then as a precaution against them not paying the final balance, which is why he released the complete video today.

After this video was released, the load on the Weibo servers soared to the limit in a short time, and it almost immediately hit the hot topics. It also swept the trending lists across all major social platforms.

The comment section went completely out of control.

"So it was dota 2 that was faking data?!"

"Tencent Group booked internet cafes themselves to boost DAU, and then framed league of legends?!"

"I felt something was wrong when that video came out; it really was self-directed and self-acted."

"How much of that five million DAU for dota 2 back then was faked like this?"

Although the video was quickly taken down and the trending topics across the entire internet disappeared without a trace within a few short hours—everyone knew it was Tencent Group flexing its muscle—too many people had already seen it before that happened.

Therefore, Tencent Group's actions couldn't stop the private discussions among players, and there was still a massive amount of abuse directed at Tencent Group and dota 2.

Even so, these players still couldn't be certain about whether league of legends' DAU had surpassed dota 2.

After all, up until now, league of legends still hadn't released any data; over twenty days had passed, and they hadn't even posted a single announcement, with only the first-day data hanging there all alone.

It was precisely because of this silence from league of legends that many people felt that even if dota 2's DAU data was inflated, league of legends probably still hadn't reached the three million DAU mark.

...

Tencent Group Headquarters.

Pony Ma placed his phone on the table; the screen displayed the exposé video, and no one in the conference room spoke.

Pony Ma's voice was very low, and his expression was quite ugly.

"Is the matter with the internet cafes true?"

As the boss of Tencent Group, he had been unaware of this matter from the very beginning. Although he had strictly demanded that dota 2's peak DAU must exceed five million, he hadn't expected his subordinates to resort to such tactics.

Vice President Chen Yongnian opened his mouth, and sweat had already seeped onto his forehead. He was silent for a few seconds, then nodded.

"Yes."

"Previously, during the dota 2 open beta, to make the first week's data look better, we booked some internet cafes."

"These figures accounted for a significant proportion of the peak DAU."

"Otherwise, it would have been very difficult for us to push dota 2 to a peak DAU of five million back then."

"But the three million average DAU at that time was real."

Pony Ma didn't speak, his expression only darkening a few shades further.

"What about now?"

"What is the actual situation with dota 2 right now?"

Facing Pony Ma's inquiry, the air in the conference room felt as if it had been drained away.

Vice President Chen Yongnian's voice also grew increasingly dry.

"The real situation is that ever since league of legends entered open beta, dota 2's DAU data has been slowly declining."

"Although we still ostensibly have three million in DAU right now."

"But excluding the inflation."

"dota 2's actual DAU is now around two point five million."

There was a deathly silence in the conference room.

Pony Ma leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment.

He had never expected that league of legends could deal such a massive blow to dota 2.

This lost five hundred thousand DAU had likely all been siphoned away by league of legends.

However, things had reached this point; blaming others was now meaningless.

They had to seize the time while dota 2 still had the strength to fight and forcibly reverse the downward trend.

When he opened his eyes again, Pony Ma's voice had returned to calm.

"We can't wait any longer."

"Bring forward the anniversary event we prepared, and increase the stakes even further!"

...

That evening, the official dota 2 Weibo account posted an announcement.

"dota 2's brand new event is live! Get online to draw limited accessories, with multiple collaboration skins launching simultaneously, limited-time discounts, and Q-coin rewards for consecutive logins."

The event content was very rich, with many rewards even exceeding those from the open beta.

Among all of Tencent Group's game events, the scale of this dota 2 event was unprecedented.

So, unsurprisingly, this dota 2 event received a great deal of praise from players, almost directly drowning out the previous discussions about dota 2's fake data.

After all, for players, being able to get free accessories was already quite good.

dota 2's accessories were not complete skins, but just a component of a skin.

Of course, the reason this event's reputation was so high was also because in this world, major game manufacturers were inherently stingy when running events.

And just the day after dota 2 released its announcement, the official league of legends Weibo account, after a long silence, finally came back to life.

It also posted a new announcement. Only this time, the announcement still had no battle reports and no data.

There was only a poster for an upcoming event.

"Celebrating league of legends' upcoming one-month open beta anniversary."

"The Night of Battle event is coming soon!"