Bao Yueqiao actually had another reason he didn't mention: even though these people were using the loudspeakers to attract players, they had paid for them. Each loudspeaker cost one yuan, and about 100,000 were used daily. This amounted to millions of yuan in loudspeaker fees every month, making it a seemingly incredibly profitable venture.
That's why Bao Yueqiao was reluctant to get rid of these loudspeakers. He wished they would continue their activity indefinitely. If they did, the company would still rake in 36 million yuan in revenue annually, a deal too good to pass up.
As for the continuously losing users, Bao Yueqiao wasn't working for himself anymore; he was working for Tengda. Since the company wasn't his, why should he care about such matters? All that mattered was a good-looking annual operating profit!
Meanwhile, users constantly bombarded by these advertisements on Lianzhong Game World naturally began to develop their own little ideas.
Ma Xiangyang was an old player on Lianzhong World, having started playing cards there in '99 and continuing to the present. However, Ma Xiangyang didn't have much money, as his wife managed all household expenses. She even checked the fixed phone bill every month, never giving Ma Xiangyang a chance to recharge his account. This greatly distressed Ma Xiangyang, who loved playing Dou Dizhu. Especially when he was constantly hassled by the membership system, Ma Xiangyang yearned to leave Lianzhong World from the bottom of his heart.
However, Ma Xiangyang had no idea where to find software like Lianzhong World. After all, search engines didn't exist back then. The only places to find new websites and software were portal websites, but Ma Xiangyang didn't surf the internet; he only played cards.
A friend had helped him download Lianzhong World before; he didn't know how to do it himself.
So, naturally, when he saw the advertisements for the oo Game Center, which promised no membership system and was more convenient and fun than Lianzhong World, Ma Xiangyang was immediately interested.
But the problem troubling Ma Xiangyang hadn't been solved: he didn't know how to find the oo Game Center mentioned in the world channel. Ma Xiangyang's computer skills were limited to turning the computer on and off, finding icons on the desktop, and double-clicking to open them. He knew nothing else.
"oo... Wait, I remember my computer seems to have an oo icon!" Ma Xiangyang suddenly recalled that there did seem to be something called oo on his computer desktop.
This was a software icon that had appeared on his desktop after someone reinstalled his system when it crashed. However, Ma Xiangyang had never been interested in touching it. Who knew what kind of software it was? What if double-clicking it caused the computer to freeze?
That thought was terrifying!
But since this was called the oo Game Center platform, it should be related to oo, right?
"Right, this oo... isn't it like QQ!" Ma Xiangyang was a bit worried. A friend had previously told him to download QQ for chatting and had even installed it for him. But when Ma Xiangyang opened it, it prompted him to enter his account first.
Heaven knows Ma Xiangyang didn't have an account. He didn't even know what registering an account meant. His Lianzhong account had also been registered by a friend. Since his friend wasn't around, he dared not do anything.
So, he had given up very decisively. Now, seeing this oo seemed quite similar to QQ; could it be the same thing?
With that thought, Ma Xiangyang hesitantly clicked on oo. Fortunately, it directly entered the software after clicking. Although it required an automatic update at the beginning, the UI opened quickly.
There was no requirement to enter an account. It only asked for a username and birthday, which Ma Xiangyang knew how to provide. After that, he clicked to enter oo directly, and on the main interface of oo, he saw the conspicuous "oo Game Center" text. He breathed a sigh of relief and clicked to enter without hesitation.
There was still some downloading work to do afterwards, but oo was very thoughtful. All the pop-up windows had prompts like (If you don't know how to operate, please click Yes). Ma Xiangyang happily clicked "Yes" on all of them and successfully entered the oo Game Center. xxs壹贰
"It's indeed similar to Lianzhong World's layout!" Although oo's appearance far surpassed Lianzhong World, the basic layout and operation were the same, even the positions of each button. Therefore, Ma Xiangyang could easily and naturally enter the game, find his beloved Dou Dizhu, and start playing cards.
He played for four or five hours straight. Only when his wife began urging him to eat dinner did he reluctantly put down the mouse.
"What have you been playing all day? You're only coming to eat now, are you trying to die? I've never seen you this crazy before!" His wife said unhappily upon seeing Ma Xiangyang arrive late.
"Oh, today's situation is a bit special. I was trying out a new software called oo Game Center. To figure out how it works and grasp its objective principles, it took extra time. This is for the benefit of the public!" Ma Xiangyang said.
"Oh, so how is this... Game Center?"
"It's good, this oo Game Center is very good!" Ma Xiangyang sat up straight at the dining table, holding his chopsticks, and commented seriously.
"Alright, this isn't your office. Don't act like a leader at home; you're retired!" His wife said testily.
"Ah, Comrade Li Qin, I must criticize you. Just because I'm retired, can't I praise others?" Ma Xiangyang shook his head.
"Fine, then, Director Ma, tell me, how is this oo Game Center so good?" his wife asked.
"Well, first of all, in terms of operation, the oo Game Center has many improvements. It's much more convenient than the previous Lianzhong Game, and it even automatically brings up prompt cards. After all, I'm retired, and sometimes my brain and eyesight aren't as good, so I can't see the cards clearly and don't know what to play."
"Then, today I played three sixes, and it automatically popped up a pair of threes for me, which is great!" Ma Xiangyang said.
"Oh, anything else?"
"Well, although the operational improvements are very good, I think their best improvement lies in the software's user-friendliness."
"You know, the thing I hate most when playing cards is encountering opponents who take forever to play."
"Some of them probably can't think of a move and keep dragging it out, but more are simply distracted by something in real life, unable to play, or have simply disconnected. Oh, that would make me so anxious, I'd wish I could criticize and educate them immediately."
"Sometimes, due to one person disconnecting, a game can drag on for 10 to 20 minutes to finish. You have no idea how painful that is!"
"And you can't even exit the game yourself because once you exit, you'll be automatically judged as having lost, and all the points will be deducted from you. The disconnected or offline player will actually gain a profit. To prevent such scoundrels from profiting, I would never voluntarily quit!"
"But today's oo Game Center is different. They've introduced a robot system. This system is truly magical, actually helping players play cards. Once the system detects that someone hasn't made a manual operation for more than 20 seconds, it will automatically assign the game to a robot to play."
"These robots react very quickly, playing cards in a second," Ma Xiangyang said.
"Then wouldn't you be defeated by the robots? What's so happy about that?" His wife asked in confusion.
"Look at what you're saying. How can a robot be as smart as a human? Even if robots develop for another 100 years and can do some human tasks, they will never be able to do things that require deep human intelligence, like playing cards or chess!"
"For example, the robots in this software are very dumb; they only play cards in a mechanical way, using larger cards to suppress smaller ones. For instance, today, at the start of the game, I played a King. The opponent opposite me was managed by a robot because they disconnected, and they had no single card larger than my King."
"And guess what he did? He threw out four threes to bomb me. My goodness, that made me laugh on the spot! Anyway, we thoroughly cleaned up the landlord in that round!"
"Also, each game has different ranking titles. For example, in Dou Dizhu, I was a commoner when I first entered, but now I've become a middle peasant. Back when my family was just liberated, our family was classified as middle peasants. Thinking about it makes me feel nostalgic!"
Ma Xiangyang said gleefully, then discussed many other improvements of the oo Game Center, his face beaming.
"Will you still play cards on that Lianzhong World in the future?" his wife asked curiously.
"No, never again. That thing is no good; it will definitely be eliminated by the wheels of history!" Ma Xiangyang waved his hand, stating it with conviction.
— — — — — —
"President Bao, it's been three days. Is your shielding development complete?" Little Ma, who had been waiting for three days, impatiently questioned Bao Yueqiao.
"Don't rush. The programmer left a complex program. It might take another week to sort it out, Little Ma..." Before Bao Yueqiao could finish, Little Ma on the other end had already hung up the phone.
"What the heck!" Bao Yueqiao threw the phone aside and cursed. He didn't know that at that moment, Little Ma had become impatient and told his secretary, "Select ten people from the technical department, bring everyone from the legal department, and also everyone from the security department. Follow me; we're going to the imperial capital!"