80: Chapter 80 Unprecedented Achievements

"How many?"

The moment they heard this, CEO Ding and Kotick exclaimed in unison.

The NetEase employee took a deep breath and confirmed it once more.

"Twenty million."

His voice was also trembling uncontrollably.

"Just now, the latest data was released on the official league of legends Weibo."

"On the day of Battle Night, over twenty million players logged into league of legends!"

Seeing that the other party had confirmed it again.

CEO Ding hurriedly took out his phone and opened Weibo, while Kotick, on the video call, also took out his phone and started searching for something.

Very quickly.

The official announcement from league of legends appeared clearly before them.

Global logged-in players for Battle Night exceeded twenty million.

The number was printed directly below the golden Riot Games logo of league of legends.

Looking at this announcement, the expressions on the faces of CEO Ding and Kotick shifted from skepticism to shock, and then from shock to paleness.

Furthermore.

Besides announcing the twenty million daily active users, the league of legends announcement contained even more content.

The ranked system would officially go live starting today, and in one month, esports tournaments would officially commence; players ranked Master and above could freely form teams to sign up for the first stage of the online regional qualifiers.

It also detailed league of legends' unique rank system, which differed from standard ladder points.

Originally, this system should have received quite a bit of attention.

But under the shock of the twenty million daily active users, this new system was hardly mentioned by anyone.

Besides that.

The announcement also included a chart showing the growth curve of daily active users since the public beta of league of legends.

Starting from one million on the first day of the public beta, that curve had barely flattened, constantly climbing upward.

It broke through 1.5 million on the third day of the public beta.

It broke through two million in the first week.

In just half a month of public beta, the daily active users of league of legends had already surpassed the three million of dota 2.

On the day of Battle Night, the peak concurrent users exceeded eight million, and global logged-in players exceeded twenty million.

The latter half of the curve shot upward at a steep angle that left everyone stunned.

And within these twenty million daily active users, overseas players accounted for nearly half.

This proportion was almost identical to the global distribution of dota 2, indicating that the influence of league of legends overseas was equally exaggerated.

Inside NetEase headquarters.

CEO Ding stared at the curve chart for a long while, then slowly placed his phone on the table.

It took a long time for him to exhale the breath from his chest.

"Seven million."

"We previously estimated the global potential player base for MOBA to be seven million."

His voice was incredibly hoarse.

"league of legends told us in one month that this number isn't even a fraction of its total."

"That's twenty million."

"A full twenty million!"

Kotick remained silent on the other end of the screen, equally unable to utter a single word.

The conference room was quiet for a long while.

Neither of them knew whether the potential of league of legends was just too massive, or if they simply didn't understand the global casual player base at all.

Finally.

Who knows how much time had passed.

CEO Ding took a deep breath, suppressed his emotions, looked up at Kotick on the screen, and a smile returned to the corners of his mouth.

"Kotick, based on six million, for every additional one million, the agency fee will be reduced by ten percent."

"We should talk about the agency fee now."

Kotick's expression became even uglier.

"CEO Ding, I can offer more discounts, but twenty million is truly too exaggerated; according to this calculation, I'd be paying to lose money."

He spread his hands.

"Let's discuss it; that previous bet was indeed a bit ill-considered."

CEO Ding leaned back in his chair and nodded.

He hadn't actually intended to follow that calculation strictly anyway; twenty million daily active users minus the six million base left a difference of fourteen million. Calculating a one percent reduction for every one hundred thousand would mean Blizzard wouldn't just lose the agency fee, they would have to pay extra, which was naturally impossible.

But he was definitely going to take a heavy cut.

"We can discuss it, but you must show enough sincerity."

CEO Ding picked up his teacup, took a sip, and looked at the screen with a smile.

Kotick knew he had lost the bet this time and had no choice but to accept the loss and nod.

Meanwhile.

"Twenty million daily active users."

CEO Ding put down his teacup, the shock in his tone still lingering.

He looked up toward the window, muttering to himself.

"league of legends, Riot Games, who exactly is the investor behind you?"

...

"league of legends, Riot Games, who exactly is the investor behind you?"

Tencent Group headquarters.

In the conference room.

The same sentence appeared from the mouth of some executive.

Tencent Group naturally learned of the announcement released by league of legends immediately and thus convened an emergency meeting right away.

Pony, sitting in the main seat, leaned back in his chair, his face incredibly pale.

"Twenty million, twenty million..."

"How could it be so exaggerated?"

His voice was very low, as if he were talking to himself.

"Is the potential player base for MOBA games really this large?"

Besides Pony, after learning this data, the other Tencent executives were equally shocked, each more than the last.

The number twenty million had already exceeded the limits of what their brains could process.

Before this.

They would never have believed that the daily active users of a single game could reach twenty million!

"This data must be faked. Twenty million logins? How is that possible!"

After thinking for a moment, Vice President Chen Yongnian still couldn't accept this number, stood up abruptly, and spoke; many other executives in the room had the same thought.

But Sun Qiang shook his head from the side, his voice dry.

"league of legends already anticipated that people would question it, so this time, they invited personnel from the notary office to witness the entire process when announcing the daily active users."

He picked up his phone; on the screen were the Weibo homepages of several Great Xia official institutions.

"Several official institution accounts have reposted this announcement; the twenty million figure cannot be fake."

Looking at the notarized information on the screen, Vice President Chen Yongnian opened his mouth but couldn't utter a single word.

The number twenty million was truly too terrifying.

dota 2 peaked at five million, with stable real daily active users at two to three million.

league of legends achieved nearly ten times the data of dota 2 in a single Battle Night.

The conference room was silent for a long time.

No one knew what to say.

Even though this number had been notarized, many people still found it hard to digest.

The only sound in the entire conference room was the soft hum of the air conditioning vent.

But just at this moment, everyone heard a sound.

Someone was laughing.

Everyone looked up and discovered that Pony, sitting in the main seat, was leaning back in his chair with the corners of his mouth turned up.

His face was still pale, and his eyes were bloodshot, but he was indeed laughing.

Sun Qiang and Vice President Chen Yongnian exchanged a glance, a thought simultaneously popping into their minds: Had Pony been hit too hard and lost his mind?

Pony didn't care about the gazes of the others at all and muttered to himself.

"Although I truly didn't expect league of legends to have twenty million global daily active users, which is more than three times higher than my estimate of six million."

"But the higher this number is, the harder it will be crushed by us in the future!"

"Riot Games, IceFrog, you don't have much time left to laugh!"