Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 521 Using one tiger to devour another, diverting disaster eastward!
Zhuang Xu's resignation as vice president of Wenjie, announced officially, caused a huge uproar in the industry.

Financial and business management media outlets speculated that this was due to inadequate supervision and prevention in the Penguin Farm game, which angered a certain tyrant.

However, regarding the speculation by Ma Huateng and others about whether this would weaken Zhuang Xu's authority within the company—

Those who are truly insightful and discerning within the community know that anyone who takes it seriously is a complete fool.

There are even rumors that the OA document regarding the decision to step down, issued from the president's office, was actually logged into Boss Lu's account and computer by Zhuang Xu himself.

Clues can be found in some of his habitual instructions and writings.

This speculation is both bold and plausible; it's information that Zhuang Xu himself posted, approved, and then directed the official Weibo account of Wenjie to publish...

However, he did step down as vice president of Wenjie, because with the end of the financial crisis, the video, e-commerce, and Weibo, which he built from scratch, all needed to intensively plan their listing process, and this important task was naturally handed over to Zhuang Xu, who came from CICC.

His role as the rear guard was shared and taken over by Zhong Lifang, Chen Zhixi, Dong Shuangqiang, and others, and Xiao Guicao was able to follow suit.

The subtle power struggles and tacit understandings between Penguin and Wenjie are naturally unknown to outsiders.

What the public sees is that Penguin Ranch has entered the social casual game market with lightning speed and has begun to frantically chase after the still dominant Game World Farm.

Following Ma Huateng's order to "go all out," Liu Chiping and Ren Yuxin dropped their disguises and began the ruthless replication of the Sharingan.

On April 16, 2009, Tencent officially announced the introduction of the "Celebrity Partner" mechanism, inviting first- and second-tier domestic celebrities and directors such as Xu Jinglei, Yang Mi, Yan Zi, and Feng Xiaogang to try it out and help out.

Kuzi and Xu Jinglei were invited because they are part of the Beijing entertainment circle. Xu Cainu, Wang Shuo, Ma Weidu and their ilk are particularly good at promoting themselves and have many fans on blogs and websites.

Tencent went all out, leveraging the natural traffic pool of 5 million QQ users, and completed the full platform coverage of the new gameplay of "Ranch" within 48 hours:

The system integrates PC pop-up notifications, built-in entry points in mobile QQ, and membership privileges, reaching over 2.3 million users in a single day.

The industry has taken notice, with numerous reports and observations focusing on the battle between the two companies.

What puzzled everyone was that while Penguin's "Ranch" was coming on strong, Wenjie, which is known for its vengeful nature, remained unusually quiet.

Apart from the announcement of Zhuang Xu's resignation as vice president, Lu Kuan only expressed "disappointment" lightly in public, without initiating any infringement lawsuits or launching any public opinion offensive or subsidy war in response.

This restraint stands in stark contrast to Wenjie's past drastic measures, such as the "Huayi change of ownership" and the "LeTV 404" incident, leading to much speculation within the industry about its strategic intentions.

As a result, everyone watched as Tencent's data surged even further after implementing the "celebrity partner" strategy. Tencent's battle report released on the 24th showed:

Currently, "Ranch" has over 3000 million registered users and a peak concurrent user count of 2200 million, which is also the date when Tencent updated the game with special gameplay features related to female celebrities such as Yan Zi and Yang Mi.

Under the pop-up campaign of Tencent's software, the celebrity-themed gameplay and props of celebrities like Yang Mi have become somewhat popular. Even though they are still far behind Liu Yifei and Jay Chou in terms of fan purchasing power and activity, their popularity has soared due to the viral spread of Tencent's social network.

Feng Xiaogang offered fans of the "1942" film crew the opportunity to visit the set and participate in various activities. Lucky viewers will have the chance to meet and interact with stars such as Zhang Guoli, Chen Daoming, and Xu Fan.

Yang Mi used her autographed T-shirts and fan meeting slots as gimmicks, cooperating with Tencent to conduct special prop marketing.

Her collaboration prop is naturally "Snow-Seeing Grass," taken from a popular character in the hit TV series "Chinese Paladin 3" three years ago, which is also the base of her fans.

At the time of the battle between Wenjie and Huayi, Lu Kuan had just refuted Zhou Jun and others' attacks on Liu Yifei, and then took away Zhang Nara, whom the latter had been grooming. Until this Korean star disappeared, Yang Mi, who was good at seizing opportunities, rose to the top.

With the support of coal mine owners, the promotion of LeTV, and this collaboration with Tencent, Yang Mi has appeared in the Chinese entertainment industry with a more vigorous attitude in the "post-best friend era".

Her team also bought a lot of press releases. When "Wenjie Farm" first launched, she wanted to piggyback on its popularity. Now that "Penguin Ranch" is doing well, she can't miss the opportunity to promote and link herself to it.

"Celebrity Bigstar": Yang Mi, one of the four little actresses, leads the creation of celebrity-customized props for "Penguin Ranch", aiming to compete with the celestial beauty!
Entertainment Weekly: The battle between the two beauties intensifies! Yang Mi's custom props for "Ranch" sold over 15 units on the first day, her commercial value rivaling that of Liu Yifei!

Southern Metropolis Entertainment: An industry insider revealed that Yang Mi's team's additional terms during negotiations have been exposed, demanding a profit-sharing ratio for props that exceeds the industry standard by 30%.

Star Entertainment Weekly: Yang Mi has already forged her own path, and the young actresses are seizing the opportunity to compete for status, taking advantage of Liu Yifei's pregnancy and childbirth.

Following Yang Mi and others, another rising star, Huang Shengyi, has also officially announced her participation in "Penguin Ranch".

Just like in her previous life, she participated in the filming of the Hollywood science fiction film "Wushan Adventure" under the arrangement of Cheng Tian and Yang Zi, playing the alien princess Sheila.

I just don't know if his scene will be cut down to only 45 seconds.

However, her boyfriend, Yang Zi, has already established "Juli Film & Media Co., Ltd." under Juli Rigging, which is scheduled to go public in 2010, and the announcement also indicates that they are aiming for an IPO...

Anyway, he can say whatever he wants, since he has a mouth on his face.

This makes her the fourth actress from the new generation of young actresses to "step into" Hollywood films, following Liu Yifei.

The top three are Liu Yifei's "A Home Too Far" in 2004, Yang Mi's "The Forbidden Kingdom" in 2007, and Su Chang's "Inception" in 2008.

The latter is also a collaboration between North American entertainment and Disney, and will be released in China and the United States during the Lunar New Year and Christmas seasons respectively.

It is evident that with coal industry funds and internet companies flocking to the domestic market, a flourishing scene in the film industry and the Chinese entertainment sector seems to be emerging.

But when everyone suddenly looked back, the most popular celestial beauty was still just a nobody.

Nowadays, aside from posting photos of themselves on the first day of the farm game, people on Weibo are either stealing vegetables, showing off dolls and toys given to them by their aunts, or sharing the performance theories and literary books they are reading.

At only 22 years old, it seems like he's already retiring early.

Zhuo Wei from Fengxing Studio also gave a brief commentary on the situation of young actresses in the Chinese entertainment industry:
Liu Yifei, affectionately known as "Fairy Sister," seems to have entered a period of retirement after winning the Berlin Film Festival's Best Actress award in early 2008. During this time, apart from her regular performance work at the Beijing People's Art Theatre and spending three months filming "Under the Hawthorn Tree," she devoted all her time to personal matters.

From dating and marriage to recently revealing that she is expecting her first child.

Taking into account her postpartum recovery time, she wouldn't be able to return to work until at least the end of 2009.

I have never seen such an "outlier" before.

In this industry where "if you don't show your face for three days, you'll be forgotten," female celebrities race against time to create buzz: some direct and stage their own airport street photos, some meticulously plan scandals, and there are even extreme cases where they pay us to follow them around.

When it comes to Liu Yifei, all I can think of is that line from "Under the Hawthorn Tree": "Some flowers don't need to bloom desperately, because their roots are planted in soil that others can't reach."

Before Liu Yifei, the first celebrity I saw with such national popularity was Yanzi. In the next decade of the 21st century, as the Chinese entertainment industry enters a golden age of diverse talents, will there be a third one?

Yang Mi from LeTV Culture, Huang Shengyi from Chengtian, Su Chang from Wenjie, Tang Yan from Yinghuang, Jing Tian who has already officially stepped onto the stage with a mysterious background, and countless emerging young actresses—we eagerly await their debut.

……

Netizens and media were puzzled: It's one thing for Liu Yifei to be a "salted fish" (a derogatory term for someone who is idle or unemployed), but are Wenjie and Boss Lu, who seem to be very powerful, also going to be "salted fish"?

The penguins' fire is about to spread to their backsides, what are you guys doing?

As if forced into this situation by outsiders, on the same day that Penguin Ranch reported its peak concurrent online users, Ask World Farm announced a version update.

This update mainly includes the following:
V1.1 [Weather System]

The game features dynamic weather simulations, including sunny, rainy, snowy, foggy, and windy conditions. These conditions refresh every four hours and can trigger new crop benefits or risks, depending on special interactions.

For example, snowy weather doubles the yield of cold-resistant crops (such as winter wheat), but ordinary crops freeze and wither. However, you can interact with them using the "greenhouse" prop.

During special weather conditions, both friends have a chance to obtain special celebrity item fragments, which can be directly exchanged for physical celebrity merchandise in the Wenjie Mall.

……

That's it? It's gone?
The colleagues at Tencent Games were staring at each other, seemingly unable to discern the significance of this update beyond simply increasing user interaction frequency.

Before they could even do a thorough analysis, the overwhelming response from the farm's current 5800 million users gave the Penguin Games planners a little shock.

The introduction of the weather system directly caused the popularity of "Farm of Wonders" to soar again. According to the official boastful report, 400 million new registered users were added within 24 hours, and the peak number of concurrent online users reached 3300 million.

What wasn't disclosed was that a large number of free users also handed over their paid and online transactions to Wenjie for the first time due to the "fragment drop and synthesis" tactic, which resembled a typical online game and was designed to trick users into spending money.

Ren Yuxin and others from the Penguin Games division were on high alert and quickly convened a meeting to discuss countermeasures.

They also have some minor version updates and game ideas, but they seem to fall short compared to this weather system.

Why are the results so significant?
Firstly, the weather system breaks away from the static gameplay of traditional farm games, enhancing users' sense of novelty and desire to explore.

Casual games already lack sufficient content, and without these dynamic "DLCs," they will quickly lose their novelty.

Secondly, the weather system increases the frequency of interaction, which indirectly increases the player's operation and online frequency, promoting social sharing and increasing user activity.

At the same time, allowing free users to obtain points and items through grinding breaks down the barrier between free and points-based systems. This is a subtle way to monetize the system, using fragmented rewards to entice free users to become points-based users.

The Penguin headquarters in Nanshan Science and Technology Park was brightly lit that night, so much so that players of "Penguin Ranch" received their first version update at 8 a.m.
The [Ranch Ecosystem System] is now online!
New ecological events added: wolf attacks at night, animal diseases such as avian influenza, drought, blizzards, and locust plagues!
Taking advantage of this opportunity, a new batch of paid items will be available: sheepdogs, disease-resistant chicken breeds, sled dogs, and free-range turkeys that automatically hunt locusts!
Several details are omitted below...

If the appearance of Penguin Ranch is a gentle imitation;

The introduction of "celebrity partners" like Yang Mi is a targeted improvement;
But what about the current "ranch ecosystem system"?

This is blatant plagiarism!

A group of game users with a simple sense of right and wrong flocked to the Weibo accounts of Wenjie, Lu Kuan, Liu Yifei, and others to vent their anger and call for a swift and decisive blow to Tencent's ugly face!

Top companies still have strong public relations capabilities. Soon, a second voice appeared online, calling this copycat update "differentiated competition".

Compared to blatant plagiarism, this term sounds much better.

However, due to the game's popularity and the involvement of many celebrity fans, online flame wars and public opinion clashes are still inevitable.

"Yang Mi, Feng Xiaogang, and Huang Shengyi, you three are truly shameless for cooperating with such trashy manufacturers! I will never watch your movies or TV series again."

【I Love Eating Your Feet】: "Don't drag my sweetheart into this. This is a company matter, what does it have to do with her? Besides, the washing machine isn't even in a hurry, why are you so anxious? Are you a eunuch?"

"Yang Mi has a pointed face and speaks like she's being choked. She has a cunning look on her face. When she first came out of the farm, she was trying to get close to the celestial being. Now she doesn't want to be a dog anymore and wants to start her own business?"

【I Love Eating Your Feet】: "Go see how many pounds your celestial master has gained? She hasn't dared to show her face for so long, and she's been buying articles from Zhuo Wei to market herself so nonchalantly. I'm afraid she's already in a position where she can sit on the top and break the washing machine, isn't she?"

This person's foul language, "I love eating your feet," has truly aroused public outrage and was quickly besieged by a large number of fans, including those of Tianxian, Laundry Detergent, and Jay Chou.

"Judging from your ID, I know you like to eat stinky feet. I suggest Weibo add an 'olfactory blocking' function. The smell is too strong; it even fogs up my phone screen."

"Because of your appearance, the entire comment section seems to be instantly enveloped by the rich aroma of aged pickled cabbage foot bath water. I suggest that Penguin Ranch release a 'Stinky Feet Sheep' exclusively for Da Mi Mi. I'll immediately recharge my Yellow Diamond membership!"

"I have to resort to the 'First Law of Replacement for Washing Machines' to punish you, you stinky-footed bastard. Do I need to deduce it again?"

……

Including South Korean celebrities who have gradually built up popularity on Weibo, the combined fan base on Weibo is turning it into a cesspool.

As for the numerous small accounts stirring up trouble, it's hard not to speculate whether they were paid trolls hired by the busty woman.

There's nothing she can do. She herself has less than 1000 million followers. Even if she doesn't take sides on Weibo, it's still satisfying to see her own fans attacking Liu Yifei, but in the end, she herself gets completely humiliated.

Every time I post a comment about loose powder, I get dozens of negative replies. Even hiring an online army wouldn't be enough to fight back, let alone going it alone.

But Yang Mi herself doesn't care. Being famous for both positive and negative reasons is still fame. Whether it's positive or negative, as long as she can make a name for herself during Liu Yifei's pregnancy and childbirth, she doesn't care about her reputation.

The resentment of being ignored and humiliated in front of the Wenyu River government office that day still lingered in her heart. In 2009, thanks to the coal boss's support and the cooperation with Tencent, she was closer to that woman than ever before.

Yang Mi didn't think she had no chance at all, because the quick-witted girl knew Liu Yifei very well, and her former best friend was indeed a lazy bum.

Once no one is pushing her forward anymore, Da Mimi hopes that while she works hard, Liu Yifei can devote herself wholeheartedly to her family and settle down to be a wealthy socialite, leaving the glamorous world of the entertainment industry to her.

Once this "salted fish" truly fades into obscurity, won't all these public opinion arenas outside of Weibo become battlefields for her fans' historical records?

Regardless, within the framework agreed upon and defined by both parties, the competition between Penguin and Horizon Robotics continues to intensify.

Even though the internet is in an uproar, Wenjie and Boss Lu have not responded at all, seemingly practicing the principle of "doing good deeds and not worrying about the future".

Just two days after Tencent released its ecosystem system, Wenjie continued to release version updates, as if it were a duel.

V1.2 [Celebrity Open Day] Gameplay:
Starting in May, one day each month will be designated as an open day event featuring a co-branded celebrity. This May, the date is tentatively set for the 20th.

On this day, users with points can access Star Farm without being restricted from interacting with each other's accounts.

The Star Farm will be significantly expanded, and fan interactions will increase interaction points and guarantee the drop of point item fragments.

Fragments can still be exchanged for celebrity merchandise and tickets to meet-and-greets and concerts.

Note:
Returning players can spend 500 points to generate an electronic invitation to invite free players to join and interact.
New users register via invitation and complete newbie tasks, while veteran players receive 200 points plus a limited-edition celebrity seed;

A "Celebrity Popularity Ranking" will be set up 7 days before the event opens, and players can increase the popularity of celebrities through the following actions...

The V1.2 update brought many changes to the gameplay, causing everyone at the once again brightly lit Penguin headquarters to frown.

You're so dirty, world!
The practice of veteran players generating invitations still follows the path of social sharing, similar to the "pay for them" model used in food delivery and e-commerce in later generations.

Such a viral spread will obviously occur extensively among fans, couples, and friends. Given Wenjie's current business and industry coverage, surely one in five internet users in China uses Wenjie products?

As for the "Celebrity Popularity Ranking," it's just the prototype of a pure fan-based ranking system. However, the bugged Xiao Liu will be "shelved" to avoid affecting the balance.

In addition to the first batch of celebrities who joined, Wenjie has subsequently attracted a large number of other celebrities, including Fan Bingbing, Tong Liya, Mei Yanfang, and Yinghuang.

In terms of entertainment resources across Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, Tencent can't even come close.

Everything else was fine, but what really bothered the employees of Tencent Games was the setting of the open day date.

Date uncertain?

What does "uncertain" mean? Who the hell are you trying to protect yourself from? Has the most basic trust between people disappeared?

This move is truly vicious:
On the one hand, the game maintains the initiative by "randomly announcing the date each month," requiring players to continuously pay attention to game announcements or celebrity activities, thereby increasing user stickiness;
Because Penguin cannot predict the date, it needs to consume additional resources to monitor the dynamics of the industry in real time when copying, in order to prevent collisions.

Furthermore, even if the two sides hold "Celebrity Open Days" on different dates, Tencent's event will pale in comparison and appear even more shabby because it uses a paid model and the celebrities' status and fan base are generally weaker than those of Tencent's.

The effects of the V1.2 major update are obvious, especially in all aspects, which are aimed at driving the conversion and expansion of free users into points users.

Starting that evening, countless posts on Weibo boasted about generating "Liu Yifei Farm e-invitation cards" and "Jay Chou Farm e-invitation cards." Damai.cn's worst fears came true—

In just two days since its launch, the fans of the more than twenty Chinese celebrities who have partnered with "Wenjie Farm" have mobilized the entire internet, creating huge synergistic benefits for the Wenjie system:
Wenjie Ticketing has accumulated a fund pool of up to 4.5 million RMB under the name of movie cards. After deduplication, the number of users in the backend is more than 800 million, with an average recharge and consumption of about 56.25 RMB per person, which is roughly the cost of a movie.

The significance of this data is that during the peak seasons starting in June, including summer vacation, National Day, Christmas, Lunar New Year, New Year's Day, Spring Festival, and Valentine's Day, the Wenjie system and its affiliated cinemas have already secured 450 million yuan in online ticket sales.

Unless these fans and netizens are just fools with too much money, spending money only for points and not actually going to see the movie, then there's nothing we can do.

Just like how people born in the 80s and 90s spent 5 cents a bag of Little Raccoon instant noodles when they were kids, just for the Water Margin cards inside.

This number is constantly being updated, leveraging user psychology to gradually lure them in. Not to mention, in addition to the points earned from topping up movie cards, there's also user traffic from Weibo, videos, and the online store.

As one platform finished its performance, another took its place. At 10 AM on April 26th, Wenjie also imitated Tencent's announcement, pushing out good news to all Weibo, video, and other users:

Dear farmers!

Spring sowing and summer growth, all things flourish! Since the launch of "Wenjie Farm", thanks to the support of 7500 million farmers, we have jointly created a grand event for leisure, social interaction and ecological consumption!

Data witnesses growth —

User scale: The peak DAU exceeded 3800 million, with one in every two registered users working diligently every day;
User loyalty: 7-day retention rate of 68% and 30-day retention rate of 42%, far exceeding the industry benchmark, which is the best interpretation of the "lightweight but not quality" concept;
Ecosystem Collaboration: Behind the flow of 22 billion points lies the precise conversion of 9.8 million in consumer potential, of which 4.5 million was injected into online ticketing, reserving a strong force for moviegoers during the summer season!
Gratitude and Responsibility

We deeply understand that every redemption of an Iris seed co-branded with E-Fei, and every movie ticket reservation, represents a trust and commitment to Wenjie Ecosystem.

We would like to solemnly remind you: please consume entertainment rationally, redeem points only within your means, and do not overspend to climb the rankings. The farm never sets a spending threshold!

The future is promising.

The team will continue to optimize the user experience with 1-2 version iterations per month, and will launch major updates such as "Celebrity Collaboration Season" and "Cross-Platform Points Redemption" during the summer! Let every purchase become a testament to the two-way journey between Wenjie and you.

Finally, I would like to share some words of encouragement from director Lu Kuan:
"Do good deeds and don't worry about the future"—this applies to farms and to life in general.

……

This piece of good news at the end of April almost became a death knell for the axis of evil.

The Axis of Evil was smugly watching the "Q war" it had instigated, but suddenly these two top students were chasing each other and making progress together, and when they turned around, they found themselves still in the same place.

The axis of evil is a real headache!
综合08年11月到09年4月的总票房数字来看，近55亿的内地电影大盘，大麦网和问界两家在线票务网站的线上购票占比仅25%左右，整体市场规模20亿露头。

Damai.cn has a market share of about 70%, and its total market share is only about 14 billion.

Now you're asking how a mere Flash game can lock in 4.5 million in market share for the next release window?
The version has only been updated to V1.2! Its future growth potential is obvious to all, which has almost become a consensus in the financial community that has been intensively studying this matter recently.

Moreover, it's still the off-season for moviegoing, and Wenjie has already come up with some amazing ways to integrate the entire ecosystem.

Once peak season arrives, does Damai.cn have any other options besides "spending lavishly"?

In light of this, Lin Jun, then director of the news center of Computer Weekly, who had more than 20 years of media experience and was known in the industry as a "senior internet observer," published an article analyzing the matter.

Lin Jun is an internet historian and industry recorder. His book, "The Boiling Fifteen Years: The Chinese Internet 1995-2009," is the first book to systematically review the 15-year development history of the Chinese internet and is hailed as "the official history of the Chinese internet."

In his commentary, he wrote:
Wenjie, an internet film company, has built an ecosystem of "points-based consumption" through farm games. It uses lightweight casual games as a traffic entry point to connect scattered businesses such as ticketing, e-commerce, video, and social networking into an organic and collaborative network.

Its core advantage lies in the triple leverage of "celebrity economy + social fission + ecosystem traffic generation":

The celebrity fragment redemption mechanism transforms the fan economy into cross-platform consumption behavior;
Social fission achieves low-cost customer acquisition through the "invitation letter - points reward" model;

The points system, like capillaries, permeates the entire ecosystem of the game, ultimately forming a positive cycle of "game-driven traffic, consumption-driven customer retention, and data feedback."

In contrast, what about Damai.cn?

Wanda's offline cinema resources failed to create a synergy with AliPay and Baidu's traffic, lacking an ecological link similar to the "points exchange" in the world. Furthermore, due to the "LeEco 404" incident, it lost its content traffic-driving tool, resulting in its 70% market share being highly dependent on subsidy wars.

The structural shortcomings of Damai.cn are essentially due to its focus on "traffic aggregation" rather than "ecosystem integration".

This business model, characterized by "scale without collaboration," will ultimately fall into a vicious cycle of subsidy dependence and data hollowing out under the impact of the "dimensional reduction" strategy.

At the end of the article, Lin Jun concluded:
The company has an artist as its leader, but he adopts a "highly centralized yet laissez-faire" approach, leaving specific tasks to professionals and focusing only on overall strategic planning.

Of course, they also have a dozen or so subsidiary managers who are "loose in form but united in spirit." I was fortunate enough to participate in a roundtable meeting of the core decision-making group once, which was very...

Please allow me to describe it this way: it has a certain江湖 (jianghu, a term referring to the world of martial arts and chivalry), a certain 市口 (shisha, a term referring to the marketplace), a certain looseness and casualness, but a certain high efficiency.

What impressed me most was Liu Qiangdong, who had a loud voice and a high alcohol tolerance. If he hadn't worked at Wenjie, I think he would have been one of the key figures in the history of China's internet industry.

As management expert Clayton Christensen said: True disruptive innovation often arises from the ecological restructuring of the periphery.

Let's wait and see how far this behemoth, which is born with "Internet genes" and "cultural media attributes," will develop in the future!

……

If this good news is bad news for Damai.cn, it's not quite that bad news for Tencent yet, but if this continues to be dragged on with version after version...

Although it may not be perfect, it is not far off.

How exactly should this open day event "creatively imitate" and "differentiate itself from the competition"?

The employees of Tencent Games, who were inwardly cursing "Damn it!", continued to keep the lights on.
The Axis of Evil naturally held another emergency meeting, but they didn't really have any good solutions at the moment. They could only hope that their financial strength was strong, and the final competition would have to come down to a real clash of swords.

Chairman Liu is still in his hometown in the United States and has not returned. He seems to be busy with some important matters. Even though the current situation is not good, he has no time to worry about other things for the time being.

4 PM, April 27, 2009, Nanshan Science and Technology Park, Shenzhen.

Because of Mr. Lu's existence, the history of China's internet and cultural media industry continues to undergo profound changes, to the point that even Pony Ma (Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent) had to be approached three times by "Big Brother Ma" (Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent).

After twice declining the evil axis's request to "ally with Wu against Cao", Ma Yun took the opportunity of attending a shareholder meeting in Hong Kong to personally visit Tencent because of Ali's listing in Hong Kong.

As May approached, Guangdong Province was already quite hot and humid. Ma Yun, dressed in a casual linen shirt and old-fashioned Beijing cloth shoes, entered the room with a smile and exchanged pleasantries, led by her secretary.

"Mr. Ma, welcome to Tencent!"

Ma Yun smiled and shook hands with him, saying, "It's a bit strange that we call each other 'President Ma,' otherwise I would call you Pony or Little Ma."

"Please make yourself at home, Mr. Ma." Ma Huateng remained composed, seemingly unaffected by the overwhelming presence of "Wenjie Farm".

Old Ma clearly didn't have the leisure and inclination for that.

In the past two years, Ali and Damai have been engaged in a bloody battle with Wenjie. Jack Ma's mental pressure is obviously greater than that of Pony Ma, who has just experienced the style of Boss Lu.

Old Ma got straight to the point: "Pony, I'm going through customs tonight, so I'm just stopping by to learn from you and also to discuss the situation regarding the question of the boundary."

He paused, then said in a relatively tactful tone, "This is a powerful company with a powerful leader, as I think you've already sensed."

"Mr. Ma, you've come at an inopportune time. The weather in Shenzhen has been particularly bad these past few days due to the southwest monsoon." Ma Huateng picked up his teacup, took a sip, and looked out the window at the Nanshan Science and Technology Park building.

"Just like our Fiyta Building, it's so tall that it sways slightly when the wind blows."

Brother Ma laughed and said, "This is the wind of Shenzhen! How strong must the wind be in Beiping? How deep must the water be?"

"You want me to get involved in the storm that Chairman Liu and Lu Kuan have stirred up? They're both old and young and in good health, but Penguin's body can't handle it."

Ma Yun got straight to the point, and Ma Huateng once again politely declined.

However, such a "three visits to the thatched cottage" was destined not to become a beautiful story, and Little Ma also firmly and persistently adhered to his own principles, never crossing the line.

The most valuable qualities a person can have are self-awareness and self-control.

Ma Yun, an internet expert, did not directly respond to Ma Huateng's evasiveness: "Pony, if Tencent continues to fight with Wenjie like this, how long can it last?"

"Huh? What are you saying, Mr. Ma?" Little Ma asked curiously. "I never thought that Tencent could fail."

"This game, 'Wenjie,' is a forced transplant, while we are growing on fertile soil. The key to our future sustainable development lies in our QQ users and Q-ZONE."

Ma Yun smiled, picked up her teacup and took a sip. The conversation was starting to resemble the question "Xu You asked Cao Cao how much food his army had left."

He didn't have time to ramble on, so he cut to the chase: "The faster the version updates and the more gameplay there are, the more paid items Tencent will have, and the faster the value system will collapse."

“Pony, this is common sense in economics. We’re both in the internet industry. Although I’ve never worked in the gaming industry, I can still get a glimpse of this.”

Economics has a concept called "diminishing marginal utility":

The satisfaction of eating the first steamed bun is 10 out of 10, but by the fourth one it's hard to swallow, and any more than that has a negative effect.

This is because as the quantity of food increases, the additional satisfaction, or marginal utility, brought by each additional steamed bun decreases.

Ultimately, when marginal utility drops to zero or negative, rational consumers will stop consuming.

This is a true reflection of the penguins being increasingly pressured:

Wenjie maintains a version update and gameplay iteration of 1-2 times a month. If Tencent doesn't follow suit, it will fall behind and lose users. If it does follow suit, it will inevitably increase paid items.

Because this kind of gameplay is based on consumer points in the game, while Tencent has always been a pay-to-win company.

To give an analogy, Tencent is like a cafeteria that keeps stuffing steamed buns onto the shelves. Yellow Diamond privileges are the first bun, the anti-theft dog is the second, and then there might be things like one-click harvesting.

When the trend of paying for in-game items becomes rampant and players can quit after less than 5 minutes, consumers are not fools. When the pleasure brought by recharging is no better than plain water, all that's left is to quit the game.

Ma Ge adjusted his glasses with a somber expression, neither denying nor confirming.

He looked at the alien-like old Ma with a leisurely air, thinking to himself, "If you hadn't kept urging me to join, and instead come up with some ingenious plans like Xu You, I would have gladly welcomed you today."
As the saying goes, "What you seek, you get," and Ma Yun really did come for this purpose.

"Don't laugh at me, but we were talking about how to get through this difficult time yesterday. We looked at it over and over again and racked our brains. His approach, from using celebrities to attract traffic to this version update and then using the so-called 'celebrity open day' to attack you, is all based on the same logic."

Little Ma's expression hardened, and he pretended that he had never thought of this matter at all: "Mr. Ma, please continue."

Ma Yun sighed and said, "Essentially, it's still the same approach he used when he ran Blogcn and Weibo. The core strategy is to control traffic tools and then monetize them."

"Fans paying for their idols is the monetization of emotional investment. Otherwise, what's the logic behind so many people buying movie tickets for points?"

"Then came the alternative path of social media viral marketing. Jay Chou and Liu Yifei posted an interesting Weibo post about stealing vegetables, and within three hours, it could attract hundreds of thousands of new registrations. The potential for this kind of spread is too high."

"The reason why we can't imitate it is because we don't have the collaborative system of Wenjie, and the reason why you, Tencent, can't imitate it is because you don't have as many A-list celebrities as it does, nor do you have such a high level of traffic."

Traffic is king, and this is an irrefutable truth in any era of business.

The differentiated competitive advantage of Wenjie compared to other companies lies in:

They have the largest public opinion arena in the country, as well as the best star-making directors in the country, and can create topics at will, and then monetize the traffic.

Ma Huateng, hearing his directness, didn't mince words: "Who told you and me to be neither film directors? If I could do it all over again, I'd go to the Beijing Film Academy too."

"Hahaha!" Ma Yun laughed, then said frankly, "Pony, I have an idea..."

He paused for a moment, then said, "To be precise, it was Wang Jianlin's son who inspired me; that kid is very clever."

"you say?"

Old Ma's thinking was clear, obviously he had thought about it for a long time: "Today I'm not going to talk to you about the cooperation with Damai.cn. Just from the perspective of Tencent, shouldn't we give up blindly following the trend and completely take control of their traffic strategy?"

“Looking across the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, basically, the stars with value are either cultivated by Lu Kuan or restricted by the film resources of the industry.”

"Could we broaden our horizons a bit further, even further, and perhaps go abroad?" Ma Yun's eyes gleamed, and seeing Ma Huateng deep in thought, she stopped beating around the bush.

"We were discussing this yesterday, and Mr. Li from Baidu immediately had someone bring us several sets of data—"

"The Korean wave is developing very rapidly in China right now. I don't know if Pony has paid attention to it, but there is a group called Super Junior. Their search index on Baidu is only below Jay Chou, Liu Yifei, and others, and there is even a trend of surpassing them."

"And that Girls' Generation, even my daughter watches them, they're incredibly popular among teenagers!"

Ma Yun wasn't actually trying to get Ma Ge to fabricate data.

The Korean wave in 2009 was unstoppable. Super Junior's album "Sorry, Sorry," released in March, sold over a million copies worldwide, and Chinese music stores repeatedly broke records for selling out in a single day.

Because of the presence of Chinese artist Han Geng, SM Entertainment attaches great importance to the development of the Chinese market. They even created a sub-unit called SJ-M under Super Junior, which includes Henry Lau and others.

The hand-rubbing dance to "Sorry, Sorry" sparked a nationwide trend, with university parties and shopping mall events using it as background music. This has made it another hot spot in the music and entertainment industry, besides the film industry which dominates the world.

Besides Super Junior, Girls' Generation also released the album "Gee" in January of this year, which swept across Asia with its addictive melody and "crab leg dance". Their signature colorful pencil pants look inspired girls all over Asia to imitate it.

This single set a record of being number one on the Korean music website Melon for nine consecutive weeks, and its music video on the Chinese music platform YinYueTai garnered over 20 million views in a single month.

Aside from music, CCTV-8's rebroadcast of "Miss Mermaid" still achieved a 1.8% viewership rating, while local stations like Anhui Satellite TV broke into the top three in the country for a single day's viewership with "Temptation of Wife".
Lee Min-ho's "Boys Over Flowers" premiered on Hunan TV, and its viewership share among teenagers exceeded 15%. Combined with the huge appeal of Super Junior and Girls' Generation, it became a harvester for Korean drama fans.

……

After saying this, Ma Yun stared intently at Xiao Ma's expression.

The latter pondered for a while, thinking that even with the level of Penguin's game development, it was still forced to this point by the ecosystem collaboration of Wenjie. Perhaps, as Ma Yun said, it was no choice but to try to gain traffic.

Since there are no stars from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong who can rival Liu Yifei, Jay Chou, Anita Mui, and Fan Bingbing, the only option left is to turn to overseas markets.

When the domestic entertainment industry becomes the backyard of the entertainment world, the Korean wave is the sharpest counterattack.

Ma Yun's fingertips gently caressed the rim of the teacup, her gaze fixed on the expression behind his glasses.

"Mr. Ma is truly impressive." Ma Huateng finally put down his teacup after a long pause, making a tapping sound on the solid wood table. "You're trying to use one tiger to devour another, are you really going to watch us fight Wenjie to the death?"

"It's a pity that penguins can't be considered tigers, and the strength of the Asking Realm far surpasses that of wolves. It's about the same if they were to switch places."

"Haha!" Old Ma's laughter suddenly burst out: "Let's not beat around the bush, we're having a hard time fighting Tongwenjie and Lukuan, so of course we hope someone can share the burden."

A rumble of thunder rolled across the sky, making the glass windows vibrate and hum. Ma Yun's laughter abruptly stopped: "I understand you don't want to get involved in this mess, and I'm not trying to persuade you to join DaMai.com today—"

He smiled wryly and said, "If I had a choice, if I could do it all over again, I would never have touched a hair on Huayi's head. It's just that we can't avoid it when Wenjie is doing e-commerce and payment!"

He tried to encourage Little Ma: "You said it's inappropriate to use one tiger to devour another, then fine."

Ma Yun dipped her finger in tea and drew circles on the table. "Now, the tiger is the boundary, and the penguin is the wolf." The water stain left a dark mark on the solid wood. "How about I find you another one of the same kind?"

"A fellow individual with an official background, even if he wants to manipulate things, he has to take into account the attitude of the relevant authorities."

"And this wolf can provide you with the celebrity resources I just mentioned to counter Wenjie's traffic-driven tactics!"

Ma Huateng remained silent. The tea he had just drunk had gone cold, but he still swallowed it very slowly. "Who?"

"Xiangtai".

With a deafening roar, thunder and lightning struck Shenzhen, where the monsoon had made landfall.

The pale light reflected on the tea soup, causing Ma Huateng's pupils behind his glasses to shrink abruptly.

(End of this chapter)