"To all viewers watching at home, welcome to today's esports world program. I am your host, Duan Xuan. Today marks our first episode, and I'm delighted to be here on this stage to meet you all. Tune in every Saturday at 11 AM, and I'll share with you the latest and fastest esports intelligence from around the globe!"
"First, let's enter our esports pinnacle!"
"Today, Blizzard Entertainment officially announced that a mysterious new game they are developing will begin testing in the latter half of next year, with the earliest players able to experience it in 2004. According to the director of Blizzard Entertainment in an interview with American media, this will be a groundbreaking game, one that will change the global gaming landscape just as Warcraft III did..."
"Speaking of Warcraft III, we must mention the thrilling Warcraft III National Championship currently underway across the country. The competition is taking place in Shanghai. It's reported that over 3,000 players from Shanghai registered, and the matches are expected to last for three days. The champions, runner-ups, and third-place winners will all receive tickets to the national finals."
"As this is the last regional qualifier of the year, the competition is extremely fierce. Many classic matches have already emerged on the first day of the tournament. In a later segment, we will take a detailed look back at the first day's games."
"Meanwhile, one of America's largest television networks, Fox Broadcasting Company, has announced a partnership with Blizzard to host national championships in the United States. Perhaps we will even witness intense clashes between players from China and the United States!"
...
"Next, we move to our Minority Report segment. On the morning of November 7th, relevant authorities held a special meeting on the healthy development of the esports industry. Leaders from various departments and social figures attended the meeting. Huang He, Chairman of Jiangnan Group, stated at the meeting that esports should be promoted and developed as a normal sports project. However, during its promotion and development, it is imperative to strictly prohibit minors currently studying in high school and below from participating in competitions."
"For minors who have already left school, parental consent must be obtained before they can participate in competitions. Games and esports are merely sports, and they must not interfere with a child's studies."
"It is reported that starting next year, Jiangnan Group will take the lead in conducting such inspection activities, strictly enforcing review processes to absolutely prohibit any players violating regulations from participating. Therefore, the current situation of many underage participants in the Warcraft III National Championship will be effectively curbed."
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"This is incredible. You can't imagine the level that esports competitions for Warcraft III have reached in China! I can only say it completely blows all our competitions in America out of the water," said Thomas, rushing to log onto the forum and post as soon as he returned to his hotel after 10 PM, without even time to shower.
"You're just bragging!"
"Are you sick? China is such a poor country, how can its competitions surpass America's?"
"No pictures, no proof. Suggest posting pictures!"
"OP, all your redemption codes are sold out, restock quickly, hurry up."
Thomas didn't expect that as soon as he posted, a flood of replies would come in, but most of them were urging Thomas to restock and ship faster.
Thomas then realized that the 100+ redemption codes he had listed on eBay the previous night were all sold out. The $100 small redemption codes were gone within an hour.
The rare redemption codes were gone in just ten minutes, with only his $100,000 luxury gift pack remaining unsold, though he figured no one would be foolish enough to buy it at that price.
So, Thomas immediately listed another 500 redemption codes, thinking this should last for about a day, and then began the arduous task of manually sending redemption codes to all the players who had purchased them.
However, he gave up on this idea after just one attempt. He discovered that because all the redemption codes were in Chinese, if he wanted to send Chinese redemption codes online, he would have to use a Chinese input method.
This put Thomas in a difficult position. The redemption codes he had used previously were typed by his international student friends. Now that it was his turn to type, he found himself in the same predicament as when he was recording the redemption codes before.
Thomas couldn't type a single Chinese character!
"Why don't I just send photos!" Thomas had a sudden inspiration. He picked up his digital camera, took a series of photos of the redemption codes recorded in his notebook, then cropped them into small images on his computer, compressing them to just a few KB. He then sent these images to the users who had purchased the products.
This was not only convenient and fast but also prevented him from making typing errors, killing two birds with one stone.
Thomas was pleased, but the buyers of the redemption codes were in a miserable state.
Most of them looked utterly bewildered upon seeing the Chinese characters in the images. Although they were playing on Chinese servers, not understanding Chinese didn't affect their gaming experience, as all the menus and the game itself were in English.
However, not being able to type Chinese to enter redemption codes was a killer.
Fortunately, although Thomas was shipping at night, it was daytime in China, and sunny in America. Many players who had bought the redemption codes began frantically searching for Chinese friends around them to help them type.
This made many Chinese international students feel flattered. They were usually ostracized by white students—no, even black students ostracized them. So, they could only stick together with other Chinese people. It was incredibly touching when these native-born Americans were willing to approach them proactively.
But later, when they learned they were merely being used as typing tools, their feelings were quite complex.
However, only a small portion of people managed to find Chinese international student friends; most were lost and didn't know what to do.
Some tried to have their friends type out the Chinese characters for them online, and then they would copy and paste them.
But they discovered that the redemption code input page prohibited copy-pasting, only allowing manual input, which was extremely frustrating for many users.
However, this didn't stop some determined individuals. Some players even found a Chinese-English dictionary online. They looked up the Chinese characters corresponding to English words, and once they found the Chinese characters, they used the Pinyin input method to type the characters based on the Pinyin in the dictionary.
Although this process was long, tedious, and frustrating, it was effective. With about an hour of effort, they could generally successfully input the Chinese characters.
When these buyers successfully redeemed their codes, the immense sense of accomplishment and happiness they felt was unparalleled. Perhaps they saw many others on the forum complaining about their inability to input Chinese.
So, a few clever individuals among these determined ones had a flash of inspiration. They posted online, stating that they could help look up the Pinyin for Chinese characters. They asked for the corresponding Pinyin to be sent to them, along with a Chinese typing tutorial, guaranteeing they could learn to type Chinese and complete the redemption code entry within 10 minutes.
The cost? A mere $10 consultation fee.
As a result, these posts did quite well, with twenty to thirty orders coming in per day. After all, spending $100 on a redemption code and being unable to use it meant a complete loss of $100, so spending an additional $10 was considered a bargain.
Thus, for a long time to come, these Chinese typing proxy services thrived, with many players making a fortune. Among them, many even became Chinese language masters through this opportunity.
So, they only knew Pinyin, couldn't read or write, but they had at least become students learning Chinese characters. Mr. Huang's goal of having 1 billion non-Chinese Chinese language students worldwide had taken a small step forward.
Although it might have been less than a hundred people, this step was indeed taken, and through a path that Huang He himself hadn't anticipated. What he had initially done as a measure because English redemption codes were bothersome had actually advanced his small goal by a step.
Moreover, these students weren't forced by rote education but were voluntarily learning Chinese, and the difference between these two is immense.
If English were removed from the college entrance examination, see how many students out of the 100 in China who learn English would still choose to continue learning English.
To get back to the main topic, after quickly processing the redemption code shipments, Thomas turned his attention back to the esports competition post he had previously made. At this point, almost all players were clamoring for Thomas to post pictures.
So, Thomas carefully selected over a dozen pictures he had taken at the venue and uploaded them to the forum.
Although uploading and reading these pictures took over ten minutes, all the players on the forum saw the pictures Thomas had taken at the venue.
Then, they were stunned.
Because all these pictures offered extremely wide-angle views. Not only was the competition stage built to be massive, but the competition venue itself was even larger, situated within an open football field.
And even more incredibly, the football field was already packed with people. On the left side of the football field, there was a giant projection screen displaying a live broadcast of a match.
There were also several pictures taken by Thomas from the stadium's stands, capturing the entire scene from the highest point, overlooking the entire competition venue.
Although the stadium wasn't particularly large and its facilities couldn't compare to those for major sporting events, such a competition venue was unprecedented, never seen before in America.
In fact, America had no official tournaments to date; all competitions were held privately by players and companies. The venues were at most small clubs that could accommodate a hundred people, a stark contrast to the massive scale in China.
"In our glorious America, we've been outdone by a poor China!" many players exclaimed upon seeing this, feeling a deep sense of national pride hurt.