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Chapter 464 0454 [The Competition Between the Oracle Era and the League of Legends]

"Poaching is blatant plagiarism and theft! Especially in the software industry, poaching is the biggest threat, making people afraid to innovate. Large companies are very attractive to employees from small companies..."

At this year's ChinaJoy electronics show, Zhang Chaoyang once again vehemently criticized the practice of poaching talent.

He also emphasized the impact of large companies poaching employees on small companies, making it seem as if he was speaking up for small companies, rather than saying that Sohu had already been riddled with problems due to poaching.

Not to mention the CEOs of those big companies in the audience, even the owners of small and medium-sized companies were laughing. Who doesn't know Sohu's reputation as the "Whampoa Military Academy of the Internet" these days?

This year, not many big company bosses personally appeared at the CJ exhibition; most of them sent their CEOs instead.

Not only did Dante (San Shi) come, but he also spoke at length about corporate responsibility and patriotism. Basically, whatever the State Administration of Press and Publication calls on game companies to do, NetEase will resolutely develop in those directions. For example, protecting minors, inheriting excellent culture, and actively expanding overseas, etc.

There's no way around it; the three major regulatory bodies for the online gaming industry have clarified and refined their division of responsibilities this year. The State Administration of Press and Publication (SAPPRFT) is no longer an option, and NetEase has unfortunately offended it… Ding Lei (CEO of NetEase) must clarify his stance.

Although Youke already holds the top market share, the first person to speak on stage this year was still Tan Qunzhao, Chairman and CEO of Shanda Games (Chen Tianqiao was not present).

Despite its market share falling to fourth place, Shanda still has its connections and maintains its prestige!
During his speech, Chen Guiliang said, "In the past two years, I've been a bit distracted from my main business, sometimes working on mobile phones, sometimes on animation, but I've never given up on games..."

"As you all probably know, Youke and NetDragon entered the Middle Eastern market last year. Two months ago, 17173 reported that we made hundreds of millions in the Middle East, which attracted the attention of many companies to the Middle Eastern market. Actually, we didn't make that much, and it's not that we're hiding anything. I said two years ago that we wanted to enter the Middle East, but everyone just took it as a joke..."

"Let me explain in detail today. Yoko Games' web game 'Revenge of Sultan' launched in the UAE last year. This year it's expanding into Iran and Turkey, and next it will enter other Middle Eastern countries and the North African market… For those companies wanting to follow suit, pay attention to localization. The censorship there is very strict; a game that can launch in the UAE might not be able to launch in Iran…"

"Also, I must thank Director Kou. Two years ago, when I mentioned my intention to enter the Middle Eastern market, Director Kou provided tremendous assistance..."

Director Kou was sitting in the audience at that moment, and when the camera lens was pointed at his face, he smiled very subtly.

The CJ Electronics Show was an event he spearheaded, but this is probably the last one he will attend as an official.

Chen Guiliang continued, "Those who follow Youke probably know that 'Oracle Era' is currently in closed beta testing with data wipe. Tonight, we will expand the beta to 50,000 participants and change it to an open beta without data wipe..."

"In 2007, Youke planned to invest in a leading American game company. However, Tencent came along, and Youke couldn't compete, so they had to give up and instead develop their own game, 'Oracle Era'..."

"We've meticulously crafted this game for two years, without rushing its release, but instead continuously optimizing and perfecting it. I won't mention the specific game name, but in a certain currently popular similar game, players often fail to select targets when unleashing directional skills; only aiming at the center of the character's body guarantees a 100% success rate. 'Oracle Era' completely eliminates this problem..."

Yu Xiaoliang, chairman of Dianhun Network, was sitting in the audience. His face darkened when he heard Chen Guiliang's speech.

Chen Guiliang is clearly talking about "Dream of the Three Kingdoms"!
"Dream of the Three Kingdoms" boasts a rich variety of gameplay and content, blending the RTS and RPG genres, and has quickly become one of the most popular games of its kind in China over the past six months.

But various "minor problems" are actually very fatal minor problems.

Especially in player-versus-player battles, the difficulty in accurately judging the success of targeted skills is often criticized by expert players.

After Chen Guiliang finished speaking, Ren Yuxin from Tencent took the stage.

Ren Yuxin changed part of his speech on the spot: "Just now, Mr. Chen mentioned that the two companies met in the United States. In recent years, Tencent has been expanding its overseas presence. Especially during the economic crisis, we have invested in or acquired many overseas companies and recruited game talent from all over the world..."

"League of Legends is currently in closed beta testing; this is a groundbreaking game..."

Yu Xiaoliang sat in the audience under immense pressure. His company, "Dream of the Three Kingdoms," had finally become a hit. And now, only six months later, it was facing competition from both Youke and Tencent.

The industry's number one and two are now being put to their own devices. What has Dianhun Network done to deserve this?

After the main forum summit concluded, Zhang Chaoyang rushed to his own exhibition area.

Sohu Changyou invited Ziwei to promote their products this year, and Zhang Chaoyang personally went to invite her. At this moment, the scene is already crowded with people, many of whom have come specifically to see Ziwei.

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Didn't you start that gossip and rumor about Ziwei and Director Wang holding hands a while ago?"

“What’s it to me?” Zhang Chaoyang said. “She gets a lot of attention because of her scandals, that’s why I invited her to do the game promotion.”

Besides Sohu Changyou's exhibition area, four other exhibition areas were particularly popular.

Each represents one of the four games.

The first one is "Dragon Nest," which is distributed by Shanda Games.

The second one is the new World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which is distributed by NetEase.

The third game is "Oracle Era," developed by Youke.

The fourth one is League of Legends, which is distributed by Tencent.

Other things like "Nine Yin Manual" and "Genghis Khan" have to step aside!

Dragon Nest has been incredibly popular lately, and Shanda Games seems to be making a comeback, with peak concurrent users quickly soaring to 30.

Cheating and hacking have certainly appeared, but they are not as deadly as in Aion.

Shanda learned its lesson and signed a supplementary agreement with the Koreans in advance, so this time the Koreans quickly sent people over to resolve the issue.

Completely eradicating cheating software is impossible; we can only try our best to solve the problem.

Shanda's "operation-centric" development model dictates that its games dare not ban accounts on a large scale. Each time, they merely raise their hand and then lightly slap the cheater in the face.

Thunder, little rain.

In recent years, Shanda's games seem to have followed this template: promotion, launch, popularity, cheating, account bans, rampant cheating, large-scale account bans, even more rampant cheating. Then, they stagnate, sell overpowered items, decline, and shut down.

For Shanda, a game that can persist for more than two years and still sell overpowered in-game items is already considered a great success.

By this standard, Dragon Nest was a great success; the fact that it remained popular for several years was definitely Shanda's last moment of glory. As for Wrath of the Lich King, there's no need to elaborate.

Many long-time World of Warcraft players, upon hearing the news, were jolted awake from their sickbeds and cried out, "Help me up! Let's don our armor and fight to the death!"

People from Tencent and Youke were mingling at each other's booths, secretly observing the gameplay.

At this moment, players trying out "Oracle Era" are all frantically scrambling to get their hands on the newly released hero—D.Va.

This young lady has already earned a catchy nickname, "D-Baby," since her debut.

Large breasts.

She also has a big butt.

It received high praise from test players.

That evening, the open beta of "Oracle Era" officially launched.

Several test servers, with a total capacity of 5 players, were completely full within an hour. Players who received beta test invitation codes but couldn't log in went to forums and the official website to hurl insults.

Youke cannot add servers indefinitely. At this stage, we still need to do some testing, and the number of servers must be increased little by little.

Chen Guiliang's simple shout-out for an animated film can attract a huge audience. His influence in the gaming industry is even greater; a single Weibo post can cause the test server to be overwhelmed.

The situation was similar on Tencent's side; the players brought in from QQ quickly filled the test server.

With Dragon Nest and World of Warcraft also incredibly popular, August was dominated by these four games.

Even the number of online players in "Fantasy Westward Journey" was affected, prompting an emergency increase in game activities.

"The Emperor's Reign" and "Conquer Online" are still profitable, but they are gradually declining. Both companies have launched new games one after another, some successful and some unsuccessful, but they have never been able to produce another blockbuster.

Shi Yuzhu has completely given up and turned his attention to the capital market, handing over the management of Giant Interactive to his subordinates.

Tao Chenggang was also quite confused. He acquired several game studios and released at least one new game every year. But it was always all talk and no action.

Tao Chenggang is working on something big; a self-developed game has been in development for a year and a half and is scheduled for official release next summer.

Half a month later, new servers for "Oracle Era" were launched one after another, and the peak capacity of the test server was expanded to 100,000 people.

It was still packed.

It's similar in League of Legends.

Some players even play both games simultaneously. If one server is full, they switch to the other.

Posts comparing these two games are everywhere online.

"Damn, these two games are so similar, the gameplay is almost identical."

"It's obvious that 'Oracle Era' plagiarized 'League of Legends'. Chen Guiliang himself admitted it; he wanted to invest in Riot Games, but was ousted by Tencent."

"It's not really plagiarism, and compared to Oracle Era, League of Legends is like a half-finished product. Not to mention the ugly hero models, the matchmaking and ranking systems are really bad."

"It has to be said that the matchmaking and ranking system in 'Oracle Era' is truly divine!"

"Nonsense, their game 'Three Kingdoms Kill' already has this system. It's already very mature, and now that it's been ported to 'Oracle Era,' it's dominating the game, isn't it?"

"Art is Youke's forte, okay? Xu Fengyin is amazing this time, she's the one who drew half of the heroes' concept art. I heard that a game company is already trying to poach her with a million-dollar annual salary."

"Xu is really amazing. I've saved a lot of her game artwork as wallpapers."

"..."

In terms of reputation, League of Legends has fallen behind.

The key factors that make Oracle Era stand out, besides the fact that the heroes are more attractive, are the automatic matchmaking and ranking system!

At this time, League of Legends launched its matchmaking system in April of this year and its ranked system in July.

The matchmaking system was terrible, and at one point it was even shut down due to the inability to properly match players. Sometimes, leaving a matchmaking team before entering the game would be incorrectly recorded as quitting mid-match.

The ranking system doesn't have level restrictions, nor does it have rank titles like Qing Tong or Bai Yin. There's even a bug where leaving a ranked match results in an immediate loss.

Without Oracle Era as a competitor, these flaws in League of Legends would be negligible to players.

Without comparison, there is no harm.

But now Oracle Era is clearly more perfect, and the difference between the two games is obvious!
Tencent has set up a special team to study and compare the two games and develop improvement plans for League of Legends. However, these plans still need to be reported to Riot Games before they can be implemented.

Youke's side reacted even faster, immediately fixing any problems they discovered.

At the end of August, the test server for "Oracle Era" was fully opened, allowing any player to enter the game without an invitation code. The server capacity was increased to 40 users and will continue to expand based on peak concurrent user numbers.

Meanwhile, the peak number of concurrent players for League of Legends was less than 30.

They've already created some distance!

(End of this chapter)