Since we are both reborn, of course I would choose the rich woman!

Chapter 296: The Short Video Era Begins Ahead of Schedule! (6k views, please subscribe)

When Guangan Games released "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" on the first day of February 2016, Tencent released a mobile version of the same game on the first working day after the Lunar New Year holiday.

This move by Tencent not only caught Guang'an Networks off guard, but also caught all its competitors off guard.

Tencent isn't the only company in the industry that likes to copy popular game genres.

The long-established domestic game company NetEase also likes it.

This pig farm company is truly amazing.

First of all, NetEase has no shortage of good games, let alone blockbuster products, such as NetEase's "Harry Potter: Magic Awakened", "Identity V", "Sky: Children of the Light", "Onmyoji"... Even NetEase Cloud Music and NetEase Yanxuan were very popular at the beginning.

If they can stay true to their original aspirations and continue to focus on making good products, then Pig Farm can definitely become a model internet company in China that achieves both fame and fortune.

But the operation of the pig farm is really just pigs.

The nickname "pig farm" initially came from NetEase's pig farming business. After this was revealed, people started jokingly calling NetEase a pig farm. But who would have thought that NetEase would actually be raising a bunch of pigs in the company? Especially NetEase's Thunderfire Studio.

Even the best games can fail under the management of these incompetent managers.

Its level of evil is comparable to the penguin's copying ninjutsu.

Such companies will inevitably suppress emerging talents. In Lü Yao's future study abroad, after the PUBG craze, NetEase, like Tencent, launched a series of free PUBG-like mobile games to squeeze out users.

After Guangan Networks released its battle royale FPS game and received a good response online, NetEase was also secretly developing its own version.

However, what NetEase didn't expect was that Tencent countered by releasing a mobile version of the battle royale FPS game.

FPS games are inherently simple, so porting them to mobile games is relatively easy. In addition, the mobile game market is a vast blue ocean market, and almost everyone knows that there must be amazing profits to be made here.

Even if a user only spends six yuan a month, with the support of Tencent's massive social system, the monthly revenue can easily exceed 100 million yuan.

So after Tencent released its mobile battle royale game, there was an eerie silence in the gaming community.

Pig Farm is quietly shifting its focus and changing its strategy, diverting resources originally allocated to PC game development to mobile game development.

Other smaller game studios are also actively moving in this direction.

Guangan Network Games is also very anxious. The concept of "battle royale" was first popularized by Guangan Network, and they also perfected the battle royale FPS game. Although they are not the pioneers, they did have the concept first.

Tencent is blatantly doing this right in front of them. They're completely disregarding Guang'an Online Games.
After returning to Shangnan, Lü Yao even learned from Yao Qiguang and Feng Ji that after watching Tencent's game launch event, Zhang Jingwen flew into a rage in his office, roaring furiously, "They don't treat us like human beings! Aren't we human beings?"

"Aren't we human?!"

The game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" was released in 2016. Its release will directly affect their year-end bonuses this year. At the recently concluded annual meeting, they personally witnessed that the lowest-paid member of the MOBA mobile game project team received 500,000 yuan!
If Tencent were to seize the market and affect their year-end bonuses, it would be even more painful than killing Zhang Jingwen's entire project team.

Therefore, Zhang Jingwen's rage did not make the project team members laugh at him; instead, they all became united in their hatred of the enemy.

Some suggested the company pursue legal action to protect its rights, others advised expediting the development of a battle royale mobile game, and still others wanted to resort to underhanded tactics, such as developing cheats to disrupt Tencent's gaming environment.

In short, the PUBG Mobile project team is currently very excited.

However, Lu Yao did not show up during that period, which aroused the entire company, but they could not make a decision on such a strategic issue.

Fortunately, Lü Yao returned soon.

After Lu Yao returned to Shangnan and checked into a hotel to recuperate, Zhang Jingwen, Yao Qiguang, and even Feng Ji, Yang Qi, and Chen Li all joined an online video conference. Gan Xiaoxi and the company's legal counsel also joined the video conference at the same time.

During this video conference, Lü Yao did not show his face; only his body, sitting at the table, appeared in the frame.

Facing the online audience, Lü Yao greeted them with a smile: "Happy New Year everyone! I went on a trip during the Spring Festival and took a break for a while. I heard that the company has become quite restless while I was gone."

These words were actually meant for Zhang Jingwen.

As the head of the PUBG project team at Guang'an Online Games, his behavior in the office was indeed somewhat inappropriate, which is not the behavior expected of a qualified manager.

So after Lü Yao said those words, Zhang Jingwen, who had already been reminded by Yao Qiguang and the others, took the lead in sincerely admitting his mistake in the online executive meeting: "I'm sorry for making a fool of myself. I did lose my composure before."

Yao Qiguang followed up with criticism: "I hope General Manager Zhang can learn from this lesson. If someone who has been a manager can't control their emotions, they are very prone to making mistakes."

Hearing Yao Qiguang's criticism, Lü Yao couldn't help but smile inwardly.

Yao Qiguang, having worked in a major company, is indeed a man who can shoulder half of the domestic MOBA mobile game market. His words may seem like he is overstepping his bounds, but in reality, he is giving Lü Yao an opportunity to curry favor while also establishing his own image as a tough manager within the company.

Just as when an old emperor feels he is no longer capable, he often finds a reason to demote his capable ministers and officials, only to promote and give them important positions when a new emperor ascends the throne, thus making the demoted capable ministers and officials grateful to the new emperor.

So Lu Yao also cooperated by smiling gently: "Alright, President Yao, although President Zhang's words and actions at the company were inappropriate, it's inevitable that he would lose his composure in the face of such despicable tactics from Tencent. He'll just have to be more careful in the future."

"The purpose of this online meeting is to discuss with everyone what constructive suggestions you have."

After a brief silence, Yao Qiguang tentatively said, "The mobile game market is there. Based on my past experience and our current research report, the current scale of the mobile game market is only in its initial stage, and there is still great potential for future growth. We cannot and should not give up on this market."

"So I think we should follow up on the development of battle royale mobile games."

Zhang Jingwen chimed in, "That's right, President Lü. The market is there. If we don't seize it, our competitors will."

As Zhang Jingwen spoke, others in the online meeting echoed, "That's right, I think we can't let this market pass us by. At the same time, we must retaliate against Tencent's actions."

For example, developing cheats to ruin the game environment of the Penguin Battle Royale mobile game.

They used a large number of online trolls to infiltrate the game and create hype.

By using marketing accounts to accuse Tencent of plagiarism, Tencent's stock price can be affected, and legal action can even be taken if necessary to escalate the situation.

They used unorthodox methods, such as inducing popular streamers of the mobile game "PUBG Mobile" to engage in behaviors that damaged their reputation.

I can tell.

The people at Guang'an Networks were truly disgusted by Tencent's shameless actions.

Every time Guangan Games releases a game, Tencent copies it. Even a clay figure has some temper, but what Tencent is doing is simply outrageous.

This time, even the usually composed Yao Qiguang did not refute these underhanded tricks. Since leaving Tencent, Yao Qiguang has become increasingly contemptuous of his former employer's actions, finding Tencent's corporate culture utterly despicable.

However, Lü Yao remained relatively calm in the face of the excited executives from Guang'an Network Games.

In fact, Lü Yao had guessed that the penguin would do this.

Lü Yao's ability to guess that the penguin would do this was not because he was exceptionally intelligent or had outstanding cunning; it was simply because he had seen the penguin's operations in this area before.

During his time studying abroad, Lü Yao also played quite a few games.

At that time, NetEase launched an action-packed martial arts battle royale game. With its interesting gameplay, exquisite modeling and graphics, as well as generous battle pass system and thoughtful event planning, "Naraka: Bladepoint" quickly became a hit in the game market.

Coupled with the promotion of short video platforms at the time, and the highly entertaining live stream footage of martial arts action battle royale games, Naraka Bladepoint quickly gained popularity.

pity.

The management of Naraka: Bladepoint is starting to self-destruct.

Actually, it's one thing for the game's operators and planners to make mistakes, but the players of Nage no Blade are quite tolerant of this game. In addition, it's the only Chinese-style martial arts action mobile game, so even if Nage no Blade keeps making mistakes, it won't die anytime soon.

Later, Tencent planned to use the "Honor of Kings" IP to create the mobile game "Star Dawn" to compete with the mobile version of "Naraka: Bladepoint".

This move by the penguin directly terrified the pig farm.

A large amount of resources were immediately diverted to the development of the mobile version of "Naraka: Bladepoint", which resulted in the PC version of "Naraka: Bladepoint" having almost no content from the end of 2024 to the first half of 2025, making the situation even worse.

The heavy snowfall on Penglai Island during the Spring Festival continued until April Fool's Day.

Although the gameplay and content haven't been updated, NetEase's money-grabbing tactics are constantly evolving.

This action caused many players from Eternal Calamity to leave, getting lost in the delta during the nearly six-month-long heavy snowfall on Penglai Island.

The popularity of Naraka: Bladepoint has also plummeted.

However, Delta Force gradually gained popularity by allowing players to seamlessly switch between the game and the original, and went from being unremarkable to becoming a mainstream phenomenon.

This is equivalent to the penguin charging up its power and tricking NetEase into using its slash, skills, and ultimate move. This is the dominance of a top-tier copy ninja in the gaming world.

Having learned from such a lesson, Lü Yao was certainly not going to be easily fooled.

He doesn't want to delay the players who were drawn to the PC game just for the sake of launching the mobile game, since that was the core player base that "PUBG" initially attracted.

So in the video, Lü Yao asked with a smile, "If we were to enter the mobile battle royale game market, would our current manpower be sufficient to maintain the quality of content updates for the PC battle royale game, while also allowing us to allocate enough personnel?"

Zhang Jingwen hurriedly stated, "That's not enough, but we can work overtime! We can also slightly reduce the original update plan."

Lu Yao's previous content update plan was to release a new hero every one and a half to two months, at most three months, while continuously developing the game's weapons, vehicles, terrain, and even maps. Development, testing, and maintenance after launch consumed a significant amount of human resources.

Therefore, we are definitely not enough manpower.

Guangan Network Games is, after all, a relatively new online game company that has only been established for a little over a year. Its production capacity is limited. Even companies like Tencent and NetEase have limited manpower for game development.

Back then, Tencent's "Dou Zhan Shen" was already one of the top super-large game development projects in China. It was precisely because of his experience in managing such a large-scale project team that Feng Ji was able to be noticed by Wu Dan. With Wu Dan's crazy investment, "Black Myth" was created when Lü Yao went abroad to study.

At that point in 2016, even Tencent, the leading company in the domestic game industry, couldn't afford to support too many game engineers. Especially after President Wu arrived and began implementing the group's transformation strategy, Tencent's original numerous studios were reorganized and transformed into the four major studios we have today.

Although the four studios have many project teams, these teams are all very busy, as they are also responsible for the operation and maintenance of other Tencent games.

This means that even penguins don't have enough human resources to invest heavily.

otherwise.

Why did Tencent, after working overtime for so long, only serve up one dish: PUBG Mobile?

Wouldn't it be possible to achieve a more comprehensive and overwhelming victory if the three segments were interconnected, or if the PC version of PUBG were released simultaneously?

If penguins are like this, then Guang'an is even more so.

So Lu Yao said with a smile, "Mr. Zhang, I know you guys are very motivated, and strong initiative can indeed create miracles, but don't ignore the objective limitations. My suggestion is this: instead of competing with Tencent in the mobile game field, why not focus on making the PC version of PUBG better?"

"More diverse gameplay, more diverse heroes, more diverse events, and more visually appealing game graphics should be what we are pursuing."

While mobile games are convenient, the graphics and gameplay they can offer are extremely limited. Even slightly complex gameplay can make the game visually unpleasant.

The lifespan of the shooting battle royale game mode itself is actually limited.

Therefore, the initial tone set by Lü Yao and Zhang Jingwen was—just like with the original "Shoot a Shoot"—to focus as much energy as possible on updating the PC game and to increase the player's enjoyment threshold through richer gameplay.

This is to attract players.

This thing sounds mysterious, but it's actually very easy to understand.

He just wanted to pick up girls.

After experiencing the top performer with exceptional talent and skills, who would still be interested in a dull, lifeless fish?

When Naraka: Bladepoint was first released, many reviewers and even veteran gamers in the gaming industry were not optimistic about the game because it was released at a time when mobile games were all the rage and had become the absolute cash cow of the gaming industry.

However, as Naraka: Bladepoint continued to operate, the game attracted more and more people. Although its peak daily active users were not as high as Honor of Kings, Naraka: Bladepoint's peak daily active users were still in the tens of millions.

As a result, after the decline of PUBG PC games, League of Legends, Dungeon Fighter Online, and Naraka: Bladepoint became the top three most popular games in internet cafes. This situation lasted for two years. During this time, many talented young people jumped into the game and even took out loans to build a computer that could play Naraka: Bladepoint smoothly with a high frame rate.

This phenomenon is not an isolated case.

This shows that a good game, even a PC game, can attract players, and some may even build a dedicated PC for it.

Lu Yao continued, "Compared to mobile games, PC games are not as convenient and have a smaller player base, but they also have advantages: more exquisite and larger graphics, more convenient and delicate operation methods, and a more immersive and addictive atmosphere."

"These are all our strengths."

Lu Yao firmly stated, "Therefore, what we need to do is not to abandon PC game players, but to create better content to attract more players to PC games. This requires our game to be balanced in terms of computer configuration."

Why has the PC version of League of Legends remained so popular for so long, with people still playing it even ten years later?

The same applies to games like Dungeon Fighter Online and CrossFire.

Besides the game itself being fun, the low barrier to entry is also a very important factor.

The reason why Naraka: Bladepoint gradually faded away was also related to its high system requirements. As a game, and an action-battle royale game at that, the frame rate could greatly affect the outcome of player battles.

Even if your computer has top-of-the-line specs, it won't help, because frame rate is also related to the network, and the network's impact on frame rate is also related to the distance between the terminal and the server. In other words, the farther away a player is from Hangzhou, the lower their frame rate will always be compared to that of players in Hangzhou.

Such a flawed game was only hastily optimized when the player knew he was about to die.

All I can say is that this pig farm truly lives up to its name.

With so many precedents to guide Lü Yao, the battle royale PC game "PUBG" was designed from the very beginning to avoid these problems.

Therefore, Lü Yao requested that the PUBG project team do their best to make the game playable on low-spec computers or laptops.

In 2016, although the number of computer users at the University of Tokyo was less than that of mobile phone users, and high-end computer users were an even smaller minority, there were actually quite a few computer users in China. Even if only one percent of this group were captured, the benefits they would generate would be sufficient.

This requires the project to be optimized to a very high degree.

Lü Yao also offered encouragement and support to Zhang Jingwen in this regard.

But Zhang Jingwen and even Yao Qiguang both looked troubled.

Although Lü Yao's decision was not quite the same as Yao Qiguang's idea, Yao Qiguang understood his own position very well. During the time when he was ostracized and squeezed out at Tencent, Yao Qiguang also became more tactful. So even though he did not agree with Lü Yao's idea, Yao Qiguang still held back his thoughts.

Even if one wanted to offer advice or suggestions, it wouldn't be appropriate to do so during a high-level video conference like this.

But Zhang Jingwen couldn't hold back any longer.

He said urgently, "Mr. Lü, this is not appropriate. According to the current trend of network development, the better we make 'PUBG,' the more players who can't play it without a computer will choose mobile games as an alternative."

Lü Yao certainly understood that their actions would bring certain benefits to the penguins.

But Lü Yao didn't really care that much.

Compared to the benefits, he cares more about the reputation these actions bring him. Only by accumulating enough goodwill can he attract some players to try out the domestically produced Android phone that is priced far above the current market price when Lü Yao releases it in the future.

Because Lü Yao is associated with a "glittering" brand, his fans are willing to buy the products he promotes.

As for the claim that making the pie bigger benefits the penguins...

Consider it an investment in the future.

Lu Yao's humble origins and dishonorable rise to power necessitate a protective shield to ensure his continued stability.

Therefore, this decision was made by Lü Yao from the perspective of his own future, rather than entirely from the perspective of the company's interests. However, Lü Yao's company is not a publicly listed company, so there are fewer constraints. In the end, Zhang Jingwen and the others are all working for Lü Yao.

They should and must stand in Lü Yao's future.

So when Zhang Jingwen wanted to continue to express his attitude and thoughts, Lü Yao said without any room for argument, "Alright, it's decided then."

However, Lü Yao did not completely dismiss Zhang Jingwen's idea. He continued, "If you can solve the manpower problem, Mr. Zhang, the company will favor you in terms of funding and publicity resources. But the update content and quality of the 'PUBG' PC game cannot be delayed."

"do you understand?"

Zhang Jingwen's lips opened and closed several times, and finally he pursed his lips and gave a muffled but heavy "hmm".

Lu Yao knew that Zhang Jingwen might disagree, but once the company made a decision, he had to complete the tasks assigned by the company first, no matter how many ideas he had.

After explaining a few more things, Lü Yao ended the video conference.

After taking a deep breath in the hotel, Lü Yao, without even resting, immediately found Zhang Xiaonan's contact information and sent her a message: "President Zhang, how is the progress of the new product? When can we expect to launch it?"

Zhang Xiaonan quickly replied, "It's already very soon, and it's expected to be launched by the end of June this year."

In Lü Yao's memory, Douyin was launched in September of the second half of 2016, and it did not become popular among young people until the second half of 2017. Douyin's explosive popularity did not occur until 2018.

During this period, Douyin made many attempts in content operation and directional decision-making, and also took many detours, so its development took a little longer.

There is nothing we can do about this.

Short videos are a blue ocean industry that has emerged based on the rapid development of communication infrastructure. Platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou are pioneers in this field. What kind of model can achieve long-term development, retain customers, and generate profits? These are questions that require trial and error.

But this time it's different.

Lü Yao has an extremely clear understanding of Douyin's future development, what it can do, the profits it can generate, and even its influence. This will help Douyin reduce a lot of trial and error costs during its development.

Therefore, Lü Yao suggested, "Why don't we release the product earlier, before the May Day holiday, and at the same time incorporate all the work we've done in the early stages into the new product?"

Zhang Xiaonan was somewhat surprised: "Isn't this too hasty?"

Lü Yao laughed and said, "The battle for internet dominance can't be earlier than it starts. While I'm attracting Tencent's attention, it's time for our new product to be launched."

The first year of short videos on the internet should have begun.

(End of this chapter)