324: Section 324

No one has been able to replicate the Crimson-Blood Zed’s play in Da Panzi’s live stream at that time.

Not to mention, the game has been in closed beta for several days now, and at that time, it was only the second day of the closed beta.

Although there are already highly talented players who can pull off some brilliant plays and kills in League of Legends, these plays are still far inferior to Zed’s in the video from back then.

So, as time passed,

many players developed a huge interest in the Crimson-Blood Zed from that time.

Many people wanted to know who this person was and why he could master such a complex hero so quickly.

Many netizens also speculated that,

in such a short time, it’s impossible for a normal person to become familiar with a hero so quickly, so the person who played that Crimson-Blood Zed must have been an internal employee of Junzi Group who already knew how to play this hero.

However,

although there were suspicions, there was no concrete evidence, so the person’s identity indeed became a mystery at first.

On the fourth day of the League of Legends closed beta, there was even a small weibo hot search, with many netizens @-ing the League of Legends official account asking who this person was, but the League of Legends official account did not respond.

At the same time,

it was also on the fourth day of the League of Legends closed beta that the League of Legends official account announced that over ninety-five percent of the game’s closed beta codes had been used.

In other words,

most users with closed beta codes

had already logged into the game.

And the price of the remaining game closed beta codes had almost been inflated to ‘sky-high’ prices at this point.

The game’s reputation also fermented wildly over these four days.

At this time, on major game-related social platforms and forums, there was almost unanimous praise for League of Legends, a brand new MOBA game.

“I’m just going to say it now, the popularity and user count of this game after its open beta will definitely surpass Dota!”

“Compared to Dota, this game is indeed much, much more fun. Although Dota is more complex than this game, its entertainment value is far inferior to this game.”

“Although this game looks similar to Dota, it’s truly addictive. Once you start playing, you can’t stop.”

“I’ve never played a PC game before, and I was able to pick up this game quickly and have fun, which I didn’t expect.”

Watching the popularity and reputation of League of Legends continuously increase with time,

the Dota department within Tencent also started to feel uneasy.

They had previously speculated that

this game might indeed establish a foothold in the MOBA genre, but it should only be that, and would not threaten Dota’s existence.

But ever since the Double Zed video appeared,

the situation seemed to have spiraled out of their control.

Now, the popularity of League of Legends on various platforms has already surpassed Dota!

It’s important to know that

this is still just a game in closed beta, and most of its popularity comes from a previous in-game counter-kill video!

It can be said that,

although League of Legends has only been in closed beta for four days, Dota’s internal team already felt something was amiss…

So, at 8 PM on this day, the Dota marketing department decided to emulate League of Legends and also uploaded a video, directly purchasing a spot in the top five of the weibo hot search from the start.

Dota’s internal team planned to leverage League of Legends’ current popularity to take the number of Dota players to the next level.

After all, League of Legends is still in closed beta and requires beta access, and the number of closed beta players is capped.

Many users who watched the video and felt eager to play were actually unable to play League of Legends.

And at this time,

Dota, which requires no restrictions at all, became a very crucial alternative in Tencent’s eyes. If they seized this opportunity, they would surely attract a large number of new users.

The title of this purchased hot search was also very interesting:

“This is the real ultimate counter-kill video!”

This title was clearly aimed at the previous League of Legends hot search.

The video also started with a sentence: ‘This is a MOBA game that is in open beta and has no restrictions. Log in and play!’

The video content

consisted of various ultimate counter-kills and solo kills from Dota gameplay.

Because the hot search title corresponded to another hot search from a few days ago, this hot search indeed attracted a large number of player clicks immediately.

The video also had a massive 5.9 million views.

However, what Dota’s internal team did not yet know was that Dota’s watchability was not on the same level as League of Legends.

Compared to League of Legends, Dota’s watchability was too poor.

This hot search

would not only fail to bring new users and popularity to Dota,

but would instead make a large number of players realize the gap between the two games.

Most of the counter-kill and solo-kill scenes in this video were quite plain and simple; to netizens who didn’t play Dota, they couldn’t see any excitement or skill.

Compared to the previous League of Legends Double Zed video, it was almost a world apart.

Therefore, many users who clicked in because of the hot search title felt they had been deceived.

All of a sudden,

the number of negative reviews under this hot search began to skyrocket.

Chapter 249: Back on the Hot Search, Game Closed Beta Code Price Exceeds 10,000!

“What is all this? Is this a counter-kill? Isn’t it just inexplicably going up and slashing a few times to auto-attack the opponent to death?”

“Before clicking on the video, I thought there would be some amazing plays again. This is it?”

“This is a video released by your official Dota Weibo account. Are these the most exciting plays in your game? It’s too far behind League of Legends.”

“Before, I didn’t know the gap between your two games, but after watching this video, I finally understand.”

“Just delete it, don’t embarrass yourselves.”

“Not to mention the previous Crimson-Blood Zed counter-kill, it doesn’t even compare to the plays of some other skilled League of Legends streamers.”

Because the video content itself was of poor quality,

coupled with a large number of negative reviews from netizens,

this hot search, which was initially purchased to be in the top five, began to constantly drop in position due to a lack of subsequent user clicks and views.

This is a mechanism of weibo hot search.

Various companies can indeed pay to buy a hot search on Weibo, but how long the hot search can remain strong and whether it can continue to climb depends on subsequent user discussions and clicks on that hot search.

If the subsequent discussion level of this hot search is not enough, then even if it was initially bought at a very high position, it will slowly drop.

So Weibo introduced a non-dropping ad hot search, directly marked as ‘recommended’.

However, although these hot search positions are very high, netizens know they are advertisements, so the click-through rate is also very low.

Originally, before this,

Dota’s internal team was very confident in the quality of their video.

Even if the subsequent popularity brought by the video would not cause the hot search position to continue to rise, it would at least be able to stabilize it in the top five.

But what they didn’t expect was that,

after being exposed to the extremely high watchability of League of Legends for the past few days, users were no longer interested in solo kills and counter-kills in Dota.

This hot search purchased by Dota’s internal team

not only failed to bring revenue to Dota, but also had quite a few negative impacts.

Although some users did, out of curiosity, try Dota because they wanted to play a MOBA game, Dota’s complex mechanics and extremely high entry barrier still made these players hesitate.

They would rather wait for League of Legends’ open beta than play Dota.

A few hours later,

the official Dota team also changed the title of this video. It was no longer called “The Real Ultimate Counter-Kill Video” but was changed to the much simpler “Dota Gameplay Video.”

And at this time,

this video had already fallen off the hot search, with only over 100,000 likes.

In fact, a few days ago, when League of Legends’ Crimson-Blood Zed counter-kill video hit the hot search, many users had already searched for exciting gameplay videos of other MOBA games, and Dota was naturally among them.

But at that time,

many users who searched for Dota gameplay videos had already discovered that Dota’s playability was much lower than League of Legends, and its watchability was even incomparable.