Chapter 1463: Bullet Hole 2 Begins!
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
FV Team’s champion skin this time was a little strange.
Take the jungler for example. The champion skin last year was the Storm Swordsman, and this year’s champion skin was the Storm Swordsman – the void hermit!
The Storm Swordsman was a normal human image. He was dressed in armor that was surging with wind. He held a long sword in his hand. The void hermit was a void Zerg that looked more like a human. His weapons were two front claws.
The two images themselves were quite different. There was not much comparison, but they were still forced together.
The created Storm Swordsman – The skin of the void hermit. The action module was still the original module of the void hermit. However, with the Storm Swordsman’s armor, the original Zergs’ claws had become two short swords. There was still the special effect of the storm on their bodies.
Moving, attacking movements, skills, and so on still retained the characteristics of the void hermit as much as possible. It was only similar to the Storm Swordsman in terms of appearance.
It was reasonable for the action module not to be changed. After all, players had to be able to tell which hero it was.
Apart from that, there was the teleportation animation: The Storm Swordsman’s armor was broken, and his long sword was thrown on the ground. The void hermit burrowed out and entered the void.
It was the same for the other four people’s skins.
In fact, this approach was quite common. Previously, IOI had also produced a “element swap” theme skin, which was to swap the elements of beast tamers and pets. The response at that time was not bad.
However, he realized that that was not the case after this skin was released.
The gamers were all too imaginative. They had completely misunderstood!
Players guessed that there were at least three layers of meaning in the champion’s skin.
First of all, this meant that compared to the void hermit, the Storm Swordsman was the true love of the players. It was beyond their control to choose the void hermit to make skins. The official platform forcefully strengthened the void hermit, so that they could only use it in the finals. What else could they do?
However, no matter what, the hero in his heart would always be the Storm Swordsman.
Secondly, the Storm Swordsman was already dead. His armor was broken, and his long sword was thrown on the ground. Was he killed by the void hermit? Of course not. He was killed by Finger Games. Finger Games had crippled the Storm Swordsman in one blow, making it meaningless for him to continue living and forcefully replace the void hermit.
Lastly, was the void hermit the end? Perhaps this time, the void hermit came out of the Storm Swordsman’s body, and next time, another hero would come out of the void hermit’s body. This time, Finger Games had cut the void hermit because of the balance of the game. In fact, this ending had already been foreseen.
To sum up, this skin was to remind everyone to remember the good deeds that Finger Games had done during the two World Compet.i.tions. In any case, every player had their own way of interpretation. Everything was indescribable.
He thought about how FV Team slaughtered their heroes in IOI’s first global finals.
He thought about the scene of FV Team winning the champions.h.i.+p with the strong hero that they had worked so hard to train in the second global finals of IOI.
Finger Games’ dirty tricks were behind all of this!
Pei Qian watched the gamers’ discussions with mixed feelings.
He wanted to cry out for justice on behalf of Finger Games!
In fact, could all of these blame be on Finger Games? That couldn’t be. Some things might not be Finger Games’ original intention. Perhaps it was because of some objective factors or simply been misunderstood by players.
However, the problem now was that gamers no longer had any trust in Finger Games!
This was the so-called ‘Tacitus Trap’: Once the emperor became hated by everyone, everyone would hate him no matter whether he did good or bad.
In other words, once a certain organization lost its credibility, everyone would think that it was lying whether it was telling the truth or not. No matter whether it did something out of kindness or malice, everyone would think that it was out of malice.
Take this event for example. What would happen if GOG produced the same event?
Nothing would happen. Everyone would happily spend money on new spring skins, Valentine skins, and champion skins.
As for the champion’s skin, no one would maliciously interpret and guess it. Instead, they would purely see it as a performance.
He had no choice. This discrimination was the result of the previous reputation. It was useless no matter what he did.
All in all, the comparison between GOG and IOI’s new Spring Festival made Pei Qian feel that something was amiss.
“Wait, something’s not right. This ten million yuan… seems like something I gave it to GOG personally?”
Pei Qian felt that this new year red packet event was a little familiar. On further thought, wasn’t this the ten million yuan profit margin?
At that time, Pei Qian had even asked the various departments to submit a report to explain how to use the ten million yuan profit margin. In the end, GOG did not apply. It felt like they did not need the ten million yuan.
Thus, Pei Qian forced the ten million yuan over.
However, he did not expect it to be used here!
In fact, if not for GOG’s red packet event, IOI’s Chinese New Year event would not have been scolded so badly. With GOG as a comparison, IOI’s gamers immediately could not take it anymore and ran away.
GOG’s ten million yuan was adding fuel to the fire!
However, could he blame Eric and Zhao Xuming? It seemed… not their fault.
Pei Qian had already given them the ten million yuan. What could they use it for? It seemed like a reasonable choice to organize a Chinese New Year event and distribute red packets…
“What should we do? Can IOI take it…”
“Let me take a look at Long Yu Corporation’s official website. Brothers, don’t lose your confidence. I was still hoping that you would lend me a hand…”
Pei Qian opened the official website of Long Yu Games and was stunned when he saw the home page.
The huge banner on the official website’s homepage was basically various games that Long Yu Corporation was representing. Previously, IOI had always been the first and was also promoted as a key game.
However, the biggest game on the homepage had changed hands!
Finger Games’ IOI was squeezed behind. The first game had become Bullet Hole 2!
“What’s going on? Even IOI’s recommendation spot has been removed??”
“The tea dies when people leave! Long Yu Corporation is too unloyal. Isn’t that adding insult to injury to IOI?”
“This is too much! I have to!”
“Er… something’s not right. Hold on.”
“We’re pus.h.i.+ng Bullet Hole 2 now? This game has been developed?”
“I have a share of the profits of Bullet Hole 2… That’s alright, please work harder!”
At first, Pei Qian was still feeling indignant for IOI. After all, he had high hopes for it. If IOI could not stop GOG, it would really unify the MOBA circle. Pei Qian did not want to see that happen.
Then, GOG would lose its final opponent. It would make money lying down!
They wanted to burn money to fight a price war, but they were no match!
The skins might be cheap but there were many players! What’s more, apart from the fees for the skins, various derivative industries, including the E-Sports industry, were also making money. This was a very complicated chemical reaction. It was definitely unbearable for Pei Qian.
IOI’s recommendation spot on the official website of Long Yu Games had not been changed.
That was because it showed Long Yu Corporation’s att.i.tude. The publicity resources that would be given in the future would naturally decrease!
Wasn’t that a terrifying nightmare?
However, on further thought, Pei Qian realized that something was amiss. Long Yu Games was promoting Bullet Hole 2. As the designer of Bullet Hole 2, he could get a 4% bonus from this game!
Of course, this 4% referred to the 4% net profit that Sun Strike Studios had obtained from this game. However, that was not little either!
Pei Qian had just started developing Bullet Hole 2 to lose money. His main intention was to test waters. If he could summarize the experience of failure, Tengda might be able to use it.
However, Pei Qian had completely changed his mind after knowing that he had a share of the bonus.
If this game incurred losses, Sun Strike Studios and Long Yu Corporation would be the ones to fork out the money. Tengda would not be able to share the loss. However, if it earned money, it would be a real bonus!
The key was that as a direct compet.i.tor for Ocean Stronghold, it might be able to reduce Ocean Stronghold’s income. It was quite good.
“Make it popular! The more popular it is, the better!”
“Tengda might have a 30% share of the profits but I can bear it! I’m willing to spend more brain cells thinking about how to spend the money for the sake of the bonus!”
Pei Qian instantly forgot about the unhappiness from before. He clicked on Bullet Hole 2 and began playing.
“Min Jingchao, I’m pinning all my hopes on you. You better design this game for me. If you don’t get the bonus, you can wait to go to the VIP cla.s.s for Suffering Travels!”
…
At the same time, news of Bullet Hole 2 being officially released spread like wildfire in many FPS gaming groups.
Many people were also discussing in Chen Sha’s fan group.
Chen Sha’s online name was “Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand”. He was a veteran FPS gamer with good skills. He was originally a famous character in the circle of Counter Strike.
Previously, when Sun Strike Studios developed Bullet Hole, they had asked him to be the leader of the gamers’ opinions to experience the game. Later on, he had also worked hard for Ocean Stronghold’s publicity and promotion through Lin Wan.
Of course, he slowly stopped playing Counter Strike and Bullet Hole. Instead, he focused on Ocean Stronghold.
As live-streams became more popular, Chen Sha also signed with Wolf Fang live-stream. He was now one of the top live-streamers in the section of Ocean Stronghold.
In fact, Chen Sha had considered Bunny Tail Live-Stream at the beginning. However, he had no choice. Wolf Fang Live-Stream had given him a huge contract. It was better to make money.
His fan group was basically filled with loyal FPS gamers. Apart from playing games together every day, they would chat in the group.
What’s more, everyone’s game time had been significantly reduced recently.
The main reason was that Ocean Stronghold was indeed a little old. It was a game from 2009 after all. It was now 13 years old. Even though the content of the downloadable content and daily updates were not bad and there were some new epic weapons, it was unavoidable for your interest to decrease.
However, over the past two days, the gamers in the group had obviously found a new focus of discussion.
That was because Chen Sha was an old friend of Sun Strike Studios and Tengda Corporation.. He was also a veteran gamer of FPS games. He had partic.i.p.ated in the internal beta testing of this new FPS project a while ago!