Who would still start a business seriously after being reborn?

Chapter 459 A thousand-mile dike can be destroyed by an ant hole.

On August 19, Shengda Group issued an announcement stating that due to the lack of transparency in the revenue sharing of the Momo system, its Bubble Fighter game will be withdrawn from the Momo system. Players who originally played on the Momo system can transfer their account information from the Momo system to the Windows system within three days.

This announcement was like a bombshell dropped on the gaming industry. Similarly, by releasing this announcement at this critical juncture, they also pressed the emergency pause button on Momo Group, which was about to experience rapid growth.

Many game and software companies that had already begun adapting to the Momo system immediately began to observe and wait.

They all knew that Shengda's move was definitely something they had planned in advance.

As the strongest game company in China, Shengda is fully capable of suppressing Momo Group.

After painstakingly working on a version adapted for the Momo system, it turned out that the Momo system was shut down by Shengda. Wasn't all that effort for nothing?

Having figured these things out, the companies that were developing compatible versions began to take a wait-and-see approach.

Bubble Fighter's peak concurrent users have reached over 50, while Momo's concurrent users are nearly 28. Bubble Fighter's sudden withdrawal from Momo's system will have a significant impact on Momo's system.

Meanwhile, Fantasy Westward Journey 2, which has been dominating the turn-based game market, also announced that it would be shutting down for maintenance on the Momo system server.

Maintenance time unknown.

This sparked a flurry of public opinion.

Many business leaders realized that this was Shengda's desperate measure to undermine their own interests. This move was actually very simple and straightforward, but it was extremely difficult to counter.

After all, the Momo system is like a restaurant that opens its doors to do business; if a customer wants to come in, it's hard for the restaurant to refuse.

The maintenance of Fantasy Westward Journey 2 for only one day reduced the occupancy rate of Momo Internet Cafe from an average of 77% to 51%. At the same time, the 334 district and county internet cafes that Momo Internet Cafe had just acquired also became a hot topic.

In each district and county, 3-5 internet cafes with the Time and Space Culture logo have sprung up. These internet cafes were not very noticeable at first, but as soon as Bubble Fighter was removed and Westward Journey Online 2 was under maintenance, these internet cafes immediately started to heavily promote their grand opening promotions, charging 5 cents per hour.

This was clearly planned in advance, with each step meticulously linked, directly targeting Momo Internet Cafe's Achilles' heel.

Although Momo Internet Cafe has more than a dozen games, most of them are games that did not perform well in the Windows market, such as Jin Yong's Heroes Online, Swordsman Online, Fantasy Ranger, Qiyu, Showdown, Kross, etc. These games only have tens of thousands of online players. Even if Bubble Fighter and Westward Journey 2 were to withdraw, they would not be able to carry the banner.

At this moment, many people felt that Momo Group was facing a life-or-death situation.

The Momo Technology Industrial Park, a behemoth that has just been unleashed, is in dire need of substantial financial support. Yet, at this critical juncture, Momo Group's main revenue has been severely impacted.

This is like pressing down on a gourd and having a ladle float up.

Upon hearing this news, the senior management of Momo Internet Cafe immediately began discussing solutions. All of Momo Internet Cafe's senior management were top students, and they quickly came up with several solutions to try to salvage the rapidly declining market. However, in this harsh competitive environment, all they could do was alleviate the decline. To completely turn things around, they could only find alternatives like Bubble Fighter and Westward Journey Online 2.

Looking across the country, the companies behind Stone Age and Magic Baby have always harbored animosity towards Momo Group, since both of their games were killed by Renren.com.

Moreover, these two games are already quite old, and their gameplay is too complex. Trying to attract players of Fantasy Westward Journey 2 with them is a pipe dream. The only thing we can do right now is to revive Fantasy Ranger.

Even if it's rotten mud, we can only try to prop it up.

While Fantasy Westward Journey 2 can be somewhat replaced by Phantom Ranger, casual games like Bubble Fighter simply cannot.

Bubble Fighter is mostly played by female users, and the departure of female users will also cause many of their admirers to leave as well.

The biggest problem now is that the Momo system cannot play Bubble Fighter and Westward Journey 2, while the Windows system can play Honghuang War Chronicles. In addition, many Windows internet cafes are announcing that they charge 5 cents per hour.

This has led to a decreasing online rate at Momo Internet Cafes.

"Hahahaha!" Inside the club, Chen Tianqiao held the report in his hand and laughed heartily.

Sitting in front of him were more than a dozen senior executives of the group, each with a smile on their face.

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." Chen Tianqiao slammed the report on the table and laughed, "Even with our success, Shengda hasn't built an industrial park, yet this guy who runs an internet cafe dares to build an industrial park with an investment of over a billion yuan."

“A billion or so is just for the construction,” Zhou Haibin laughed. “If they were to fully utilize that industrial park, they would need to invest at least another two or three billion. If they had quickly sold off the housing, shops, and CBD in the industrial park to raise cash, their situation might have been better. But they have already announced that all the buildings in the Momo Technology Industrial Park will be leased out. This is really digging their own grave.”

"Yes, they're a bit too arrogant."

"It's mainly because our chairman's strategies are too brilliant."

"Now they only have two choices: either protect the internet cafes or protect the industrial park. If they try to protect both, they will end up like Shi Yuzhu back then."

The crowd was buzzing with excitement, their voices filled with joy.

If it weren't for Momo Group constantly causing trouble, they would have already been listed on Nasdaq and achieved financial freedom.

All of you here own some employee stock.

Chen Tianqiao elegantly picked up his teacup, took a sip, and smiled, "It's not entirely my doing. They brought it on themselves. If they hadn't announced a strict ban on minors going online, their internet cafes wouldn't be in such a bad situation. At least they would still be full on Saturdays and Sundays."

Chen Tianqiao's joking remark caused everyone present to burst into laughter again.

"Fully booked on Saturdays and Sundays"—that's a pretty sophisticated way to mock someone.

Chen Tianqiao has carefully studied Momo Group's cash flow.

Although Momo Group's cash flow is no weaker than theirs, Momo Group has expanded its operations too much, with many of its operations being bottomless pits.

It's like the internet cafes are expanding.

Since Momo Internet Cafe is wholly owned by Momo Group, every step of its development requires a significant investment of real money.

For example, three months ago, Momo Group upgraded the Celeron 1 processors in its self-operated internet cafes, costing nearly 300 million yuan for just over 200,000 computers.

In addition, Honor's R&D funding is increasing. According to first-hand data obtained by Chen Tianqiao, Honor invests as much as 11 billion yuan in R&D every year, all of which is invested in the design of wireless network cards and complete computer systems.

Honor PCs have been collaborating with the Momo System Research Center to develop the most compatible host for the Momo system.

Previously, Honor Computer released a desktop computer called Honor G1. Chen Tianqiao, who was always paying attention to Momo Group, even asked someone to buy one for him, but he was very disappointed with that computer.

In order to maximize performance, Honor Computer engineers focused too much on overall integrity and integration when setting up the host. Apart from the hard drive, components such as memory and CPU are integrated on the motherboard, making it almost impossible for users to upgrade or repair themselves. If they want to upgrade or repair, they can only go to the Honor Computer factory.

In Chen Tianqiao's view, a computer that users cannot customize is simply garbage.

The only advantage is that the computer's smoothness is undeniable. However, with computers being updated so quickly, if you can't upgrade it yourself or have it upgraded at a computer store, then the computer loses its value.

When Nvidia releases a graphics card, users of computers like Lianxiang can simply buy it and upgrade themselves. However, Honor computers simply say: "Hardware incompatibility."

In Chen Tianqiao's view, these were all extremely fatal problems.

As for wireless network cards...

Is a 2G network card also called a network card?
Chen Tianqiao carefully calculated Momo Group's total expenditures from May 2002 to May 2003, and the figure was astonishing.

From May 2002 to May 2003, Momo Group's total revenue was 137 billion yuan, which can be considered as crossing the threshold of a 10 billion yuan group. In addition, the net profit of Momo Internet Cafe and Momo Games, the two major revenue sources, is extremely high, and Momo Group's net profit is as high as 6 billion yuan, almost comparable to that of Shengda Group.

It's worth noting that Huawei, with revenue of 317 billion yuan in the same year, only had a net profit of 40 billion yuan.

Chen Tianqiao believed that Shengda could completely defeat Momo Group mainly because 85% of Momo Group's profits were taken by its major shareholder.

They only gave away 37% of Shengda's profits.

In terms of financial strength, Shengda can absolutely crush Momo Group.

Moreover, Shengda only has two businesses: games and investments, while Momo Group is a complete industrial chain, and every link in this industrial chain requires burning money.

A thousand-mile embankment was destroyed by an ant nest.

Momo Group has grown too fast; it's not just an anthill, it's a rat hole.

"Have those salespeople who lobbied the investors of the joint-venture internet cafes been sent out yet?" Chen Tianqiao asked Zhai Hui, the marketing director.

Zhai Hui quickly stood up and said, "Chairman, they've all been sent out. We've sent one person to each district and county."

"Hmm, any news?" Chen Tianqiao asked again.

Although Chen Tianqiao appeared calm and confident, he was actually quite nervous inside.

The outcome hinges on this one battle.

If the investors of the joint-venture internet cafes in those 334 districts and counties are persuaded to turn against them, then the dominoes set up by Momo Group will have been toppled.

Under this chain reaction, not only will the joint-venture internet cafes in these 334 districts and counties be at risk, but the internet cafe market in Handong Province will also undergo a dramatic transformation.

After all, there are many joint-venture internet cafes in Handong Province, but only 100 of them truly enjoy a guaranteed minimum income.

Zhai Hui said, "There is no clear news yet. Many internet cafe investors are waiting and seeing. Moreover, Momo Internet Cafe's financial report for this month has not yet been released. Even if those internet cafe investors want to regain control, they can only do so after the report is released."

Chen Tianqiao nodded slowly and said, "Well, let's wait and see."

Zhai Hui laughed and said, "With the current occupancy rate of Momo Internet Cafe, the financial statements definitely won't look very good."

"It's hard to say," Chen Danian suddenly said at this moment.

Chen Tianqiao also seemed quite helpless about his younger brother.

Chen Danian is undoubtedly the most cynical person in Shengda Group, without exception.

Chen Tianqiao frowned slightly and looked at Chen Danian, who then said, "Brother, the report you saw before was from May. Momo Games has undergone many changes in the past two months, so their revenue report must be different now."

"How different could it be?" Chen Tianqiao asked. "Do you have specific data?"

Chen Danian shook his head and said, "We'll have to wait until Momo Group finishes filing its taxes to know, but I have a feeling that Honghuang Zhanji's revenue will definitely be high in the next month or two."

“Those are all uncertainties; only the data speaks for itself,” Chen Tianqiao said. “Even if Honghuang Zhanji’s revenue has been good these past two months, how good can it be? Do you think they can generate a billion yuan in revenue every month?”

Chen Tianqiao's tone was full of disdain.

Their combined revenue from Legendary and Legendary 3 didn't even reach 1 billion RMB per month.

Although they are now on a downward trend, their online gaming volume is still the highest in China.

The game "Honghuang Zhanji" only targets internet cafes, and its maximum online player count is very limited, depending on the number of computers in the internet cafe.

Legend and Legend 3, on the other hand, coexisted on personal PCs and internet cafe PCs. Their users were mostly self-employed individuals, shop owners, ordinary white-collar workers, etc., accounting for one-tenth of the tens of millions of internet users.

Chen Danian said, "I think that Honghuang Zhanji's monthly revenue is close to 1 billion, if not 1 billion. Their peak concurrent users have risen to 157 million, while our peak concurrent users have dropped from 1.9 million to 171 million."

Upon hearing this number of online viewers, Chen Tianqiao's good mood vanished instantly.

He glanced at Chen Danian and said with a stern face, "You don't need to repeat yourself, I know all of this."

Seeing that Chen Tianqiao was somewhat angry, Chen Danian fell silent.

In one year, their game's peak concurrent users dropped by a full million.

What's most infuriating is that the number of online players for "The Legend of the Primordial Era" has increased by 100 million.

This is also why Chen Tianqiao chose to fight Momo Group to the death.

If they don't take over Momo Group soon, they'll be in danger.

Chen Tianqiao was silent for a moment, then said, "Even if Honghuang Zhanji really achieves 1 billion a month, I will find a way to deal with it. Now it depends on which one Momo Group wants to protect."

Chen Danian said, "Given Shi Yuzhu's example, I estimate they will choose to protect Momo Internet Cafe."

“Yes, I think so too.” Chen Tianqiao nodded slowly and said, “If they try to protect Momo Internet Cafe, they will have to engage in a money war with us.”

Chen Tianqiao looked at Chief Financial Officer Su Yao and asked, "Is the money ready?"

Su Yao smiled and said, "It's all ready. I've spoken with the bank, and we can withdraw our 30 billion yuan at will."

Chen Tianqiao nodded in satisfaction and laughed heartily, "This is our final battle against Momo Group! With everyone's strong support, Momo Group's good days are over!"

(End of this chapter)