“Oh…” Pei Qian seemed to have an impression of him. “How long has it been since they took over IOI’s domestic server? How did they fail so quickly?”
Lin Wan could not help but laugh. “That’s right, Boss Pei.
“The first thing that Eric did when he took over IOI’s local server was to look for a chain of internet cafes to work with. That had brought about unprecedented results in South Korea earlier.
“However, most internet cafes were uninterested. After all, those are just leftover internet cafes.
“Even at those that agreed, gamers wouldn’t play IOI just to save a bit on their bill.”
The corners of Lin Wan’s mouth turned upwards in an arrogant smile. Dayak Corporation was now suffering the exact same fate as Shang Yang had earlier. History was repeating itself.
Pei Qian looked disappointed. “That’s all? Tell them to try a bit harder. It’ll be best if we engage in a price war. How can they steal our players if they’re so afraid to spend money?”
Ye Zhizhou said, “They’re probably testing the waters and unfamiliar with the market because they just entered. After all, our market is similar to the East Asian market in some ways. That’s probably why he thinks his experience in South Korea would be helpful.”
Pei Qian sniggered.
Testing the waters? Hmm… after testing the waters, you’ll learn which methods don’t work. Shang Yang Games had already done everything that it could earlier…
“Alright, be dismissed.”
Pei Qian stood up to leave. Just as he walked through the door, his cell phone vibrated.
He picked it up to take a look and realized that it was a photo from Zhang Yuan. It was blurry, but the ‘2,000,000’ was particularly eye-catching.
Zhang Yuan: “Boss Pei! The DGE Club has finally earned its first paycheck! This is worth celebrating!”
Pei Qian was stunned. He tapped the image to take a closer look. He became paralyzed, as if he had just been struck by a bolt of lightning, and then held himself back from cussing.
Who the f*ck was willing to sponsor a club that could not even take part in competitions?!
Crazy!
Chapter 608 - Three Sponsorships at Most
Pei Qian was speechless.
The sponsorship of two million yuan was not too much since Boss Pei has been sponsoring one million US dollars to foreign clubs.
However, the key point was that DGE was not a veteran club that had been in operations for a long time. There was no exposure since they could not enter competitions. Who would want to sponsor them for?
Could you recoup this money?
Pei Qian calmed down a little and clicked on the photo sent by Zhang Yuan. He glanced at the picture again and found the keywords above: Waiwai Live-Streaming Platform.
Why does a live-stream platform want to sponsor the DGE club? Could it be…?
Pei Qian suddenly felt that something was not good! Indeed, the DGE club could not play official competitions, but it did not mean they could not livestream!
The live-stream platform had its own exposure!
That was a very dangerous signal, he had to interfere!
Pei Qian knew very well that within a year, all kinds of domestic capital would enter this arena and live-stream platforms would spring up like bamboo shoots after a rain. The money burning war would begin.
The popularity of live-streamers would increase, many sky-high contracts would appear!
What if there were some talented live-streamers in the DGE club?
Pei Qian was a little grateful that Zhang Yuan exposed this to him early. There seemed to be room to rescue the situation. He quickly took his car to the DGE club.
…
Pei Qian carefully reviewed the contract after he came to the DGE club.
Zhang Yuan stood by the side and could not help but to think of reasons for the scene in front of him since Boss Pei looked very serious.
It seems like Boss Pei attaches great importance to the profitability of the DGE club. He rushed over as soon as he heard the news!
Moreover, he is looking at the contract very seriously. Is he worried if there were any traps in the contracts and wanted to check it again?
I did not take a cut from Huang Wang’s live-stream contract. I wonder if Boss Pei will support my approach or not.
Pei Qian put down the contract after some time.
Zhang Yuan hurriedly tested the ground. “Boss Pei, I did not take any commission from Huang Wang’s live-stream because…”
Pei Qian raised his hand. “Um, you did very well in this! Are the other players going to sign a live-stream contract as well?”
Zhang Yuan shook his head. “No, Waiwai Live-Streaming Platform signed with Huang Wang mainly because of his potential as a live-streamer. He knows his stuff, talks a lot, has a good figure and image.
“Most of our players are not able to do the second point and are not very good at analyzing the situation in the game. Therefore, there is not much commercial value in the view of live-streaming.
“Even if they were to sign a contract, it would not be at such a high value of two million yuan.”
Pei Qian heaved a sigh of relief.
Lucky! Zhang Yuan’s understanding of the Tengda spirit is still useful.
The two-million-yuan contract that Huang Wang signed had nothing to do with him since the club did not take a cut out of it.
With this precedent, it would not affect the club even if the other players were to sign with the live-stream platform. Not to mention that the other players would certainly not sign such a large contract.
However, there was a hidden threat. What if Huang Wang were to gather a large number of fans and indirectly gained a lot of attention to the DGE club?
Therefore, this person was a hidden threat!
Pei Qian noted silently. He had to find a chance to make arrangements for such an ‘outstanding’ employee. It would not work now since there was no opportunity. Moreover, the situation was not so urgent yet so they could consider it for the long term.
The more pressing issue now was about the sponsorship of the DGE club!
Waiwai Live-Streaming Platform might have felt that sponsoring DGE would allow it to have some potential in sponsorship. Most of it would be because of the DGE club’s identity as ‘Tengda’s son’.
Sponsorship was something that attracts. There would be a second one as long as there was a first. It was the essence of being a human.
Two million might not be a lot, but what if it was a few two millions? Then, it would be awkward.
Pei Qian started the DGE club to burn money. If sponsorship could really offset all the expenses, then wouldn’t it all be a waste of his efforts?
Of course, Pei Qian could also choose to let the DGE club burn money like a bottomless pit. There were so many places to spend money after all. However, spending money like a bottomless pit would also greatly attract attention from the outside world and would probably send wrong signals.
What if everyone started to raise prices and sponsor blindly? What then? There was such a possibility.
Therefore, he had to nib sponsorship at its bud. It did not make sense to not accept sponsorship, but it should be okay if they were to just control the amount, right?
Pei Qian thought about it for a while and said, “DGE can only accept up to three sponsors at a time. Sponsor logos can only be printed in three places on the team uniform: right chest and left and right arm sleeves.
“All sponsor logos had to be small; they cannot be broader than 15 cm.”
Pei Qian thought about it again before adding. “Moreover, only one sponsorship from the same category of industry could be accepted at any one time.”
The last condition was mainly against the live-stream industry.
Pei Qian was very worried that ZZ Live-Stream would enter as well since Waiwai Live-Streaming Platform sponsored the DGE club. There was no exclusive clause signed anyway.
What if the liv
e-streaming platforms were to advertise DGE when the money-burning wars began? Wouldn’t that cause a lot of headaches?
Therefore, Pei Qian deliberately forced it down that the sponsorship of each category should only receive one sponsor which would directly be passed to all future live-streaming platforms. The other streaming platforms could only bid one year later even if they wanted to compete.
It was not that there were no other sponsors, for example for keyboards, mouses and other peripherals such as motherboard. However, they were often not as generous as live-streaming platforms.
Moreover, they should not earn too much if they were to only limit to three sponsors.
What was more, for the logo of the sponsor to be so small would probably disgust the sponsors. They would probably also hurt the enthusiasm of some sponsors.
Zhang Yuan thought about it briefly and nodded. “Alright, Boss Pei. I understand. You are afraid that DGE would become too commercialized and would affect the mentality and training of the players.
“I will think carefully when we receive sponsorship requests and will definitely go for the best!”
Pei Qian: “?”
I’m not asking you to pick the best, but to make you take less sponsorship!
However, there was no helping it; he did not have any more strength to explain anymore. Pei Qian’s original intention was for him to receive three sponsorships of 100,000 yuan each.
However, Zhang Yuan obviously did not understand it that way. If there were only three sponsorships and there were only two left now, then these two had to be considered and sold for a huge price.
Pei Qian could not say it clearly. He could only pray that there would be no more idiotic sponsors coming forth to mess things up.
It would be best if Zhang Yuan asked for a sky-high price, and the sponsors were all unwilling to be taken advantage of.
…
…
August 9th, Tuesday…
In the morning, Ye Zhizhou came to Tengda Games to meet with Li Yada, Bao Xu, and Min Jingchao. He was here to learn. Boss Pei threw a lot of money yesterday to directly help Shang Yang Games arrange a budget of 40 million dollars. However, he left a mystery with the 20 million dollars.
Boss Pei said that the current promotional strategy still had a big loophole for everyone to find out and then make up for.
Everyone in Shang Yang Games thought for a whole day with no clue.
Boss Pei had already arranged most of the mainstream promotion methods. They had thought of other promotional methods such as inviting celebrities to endorse; however, that would be no different from foreign-sponsored partnerships.
These other promotion methods were not unique enough. If one would spend 20 million US dollars this way, the price-quality ratio would be very poor, and it would certainly be impossible to meet the requirements of Boss Pei.
Therefore, Shang Yang Games sent Ye Zhizhou to Tengda Games today to ask for advice.
These people from Tengda were originally the people who developed GOG after all. They had rich experience in the promotion of the GOG domestic server. They might be able to think of something.
If time were to permit, these people from Shang Yang Games would like to complete the task independently, but time did not allow it.
The publicity plan would definitely be a unified one. No matter where the 20 million US dollars was spent, it would definitely affect other publicity plans.
For example, if the 20 million US dollars were used to find a few celebrities, these celebrities would definitely be placed in public places such as internet advertisements and on subways and buses.
These 20 million US dollars were not finalized. The publicity materials would certainly not be finalized and must be completed at the same time.
Therefore, Ye Zhizhou could only help that more brains were better than one. The four of them brainstormed together in the guest room.
Min Jingchao and the others fell into contemplation after learning about Boss Pei’s promotion strategy. Several plans overlapping with the current promotional strategy were put forward and were quickly killed.
Min Jingchao thought over it again and said, “I think that we should consider it from two general directions.
“First, the direction must be able to spend most of the money and not overlap with existing promotional strategies. Second, the publicity methods should be different from those already adopted by GOG.
“Otherwise, Boss Pei will not deliberately leave this puzzle.”
Ye Zhizhou frowned. “From this point, hiring foreign big-name celebrities seemed to be suitable, but the price-quality ratio may be very poor.”
Li Yada shook his head. “I think that would be boring.”
“The overlap of big-name celebrities and our target audiences is not high enough. We are not selling luxury goods or daily necessities. How many players can we attract by having big celebrities endorse us? The conversion rate will definitely not look good.”
Bao Xu thought about it and said, “I think it won’t really matter even if it overlaps with the domestic server publicity strategy. The birth of GOG represented Boss Pei’s original idea. This approach seemed to match the current situation of GOG’s international services.
“I mean… character IPs.”
“Character IPs?” The eyes of the other three brightened up.
Bao Xu nodded. “Yes, Boss Pei had set the direction when GOG first started: Purchase a large number of Character IPs to serve as GOG’s hero reserve.”
Chapter 609 - The Third-Largest Comic Company
“Even though we developed our own capabilities, we have never stopped buying character IPs. We have a huge place in the GOG creative area to showcase the character IPs we bought and to allow players to collect them,” Bao Xu continued.
“GOG world server is currently lacking in this area!”
“That’s right, we are indeed lacking in that!” Min Jingchao said in realization.
“The character IPs we have bought until now are characters with a little influence locally, but none at all when it comes to overseas. These character IPs are foreign to them.
“Comparing the current GOG hero storage to IOI, they might have the advantage locally, but the reverse is true overseas. Players overseas might be more tolerant towards the heroes of IOI.
“That is a very crucial point that we have to address!”
Ye Zhizhou gave it some thought. “Then, what if we are to create an online GOG creative site?”
Min Jingchao shook his head. “No, GOG creative sites can only make good things on the precondition that there are enough players and that a large number of them participate.
“However, GOG does not have many overseas players now. We’ll definitely not be able to gather good works if we are to make a creative site now. This money would either not be able to be spent or it would be spent meaninglessly.
“You should buy some international successful IPs!
“This way, it would have the same publicity effect as big-shot celebrities or even better because the target audience would be clearer. We can code these successful IPs into the game; it is much better than to get a celebrity to endorse it!”
Ye Zhizhou became excited. “Understood! As expected, this should be the answer that Boss Pei wants!”
Everyone discussed again and became even more convinced that ‘buy IPs’ was the best answer to Boss Pei’s puzzle. It should also be something that Boss Pei had considered.
This ‘buy IPs” direction was the original principle from when GOG developed. It was now pushed into the world server and required an IP widely accepted by overseas players.
“Everyone, don’t be too happy so fast. We have not fully deciphered Boss Pei’s problem,” Li Yada reminded everyone.
“We’ve decided to buy IPs, but how do we buy? Which one to buy?
“20 million US dollars will definitely not be enough if we were to buy those famous heroes since most overseas companies are eyeing them as w
ell. The copyrights of those dramatized ones would be sky-high.
“Buying expensive big IPs will probably not be in line with Boss Pei’s original intentions since Boss Pei never buys expensive big IPs locally.
“It’s different from domestic markets. We have to get an IP that is influential enough for the publicity to have the effect.”
Everyone entered a state of argument.
Finally, Li Yada suggested, “Therefore, we have two ways now. The first way is to buy two internationally successful IP; the second is to buy a large number of not so well known IPs that international players can identify with.
“Since we are unsure, we can send both answers to Boss Pei and let him decide.”
Ye Zhizhou nodded and stood up. “Understood, thank you, everyone! I’ll go back to do a simple investigation before we let Boss Pei make the final decision!”
…
…
August 10th, Wednesday…
Pei Qian received Ye Zhizhou’s phone call not long after he woke up.
“Boss Pei, we have come up with GOG’s international server publicity proposal! We want to buy some international character IPs to put them into the game!
“However, we now have a problem. Should we buy one or two famous international character IPs, or should we buy a few more character IPs that are not so well-known but will match international players’ wants?”
Pei Qian thought about it for a while before replying. “The latter.”
Such international character IPs would be too painful. Pei Qian was afraid that IOI would not be able to rival them. Such a worry might be strange, but it was not at all unreasonable.
The GOG game itself was already much better than IOI: a client-side game with reasonable fees and a whole load of character heroes. The game machine was easier to get used to and to spread.
Moreover, GOG was now being promoted overseas. There were two main points: its inability to adapt and the chances of its name spreading.
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