“Hoo, Brother Ma has such ambition! His methods are astounding. He can be this ruthless too!” Tengda had never acquired Lianzhong in history, so this event had never happened before. Our Boss Huang therefore had no foresight advantage. He only found out about the matter a week after it happened, through some friends.
This incident indeed shook the entire industry. No one expected Brother Ma to play this ruthlessly. Being ruthless to others was one thing, but being ruthless to himself, using such violent means to purge the original management team, was undoubtedly a double-edged sword. While it harmed others, it also severely wounded himself, as Lianzhong was his own company.
Lianzhong and Brother Ma indeed paid a price. Bao Yueqiao had no intention of going to study in America. That very evening, he submitted his resignation decisively, and Brother Ma approved it directly. The two parted ways so resolutely.
And Bao Yueqiao, as he had said, took almost the entire executive team of Lianzhong with him in one go. While some were loyal veterans determined to follow Bao Yueqiao, others who didn't want to leave were simply intimidated by Brother Ma's thunderous methods and felt they could no longer stay in the company, so they left with him.
As a result, almost all of Lianzhong's senior management was gone. This was a devastating blow. Within two days of the incident, Lianzhong announced it was undergoing server maintenance. With the loss of so much management, it was bound to be difficult to operate normally.
However, the maintenance only lasted for two days. After two days, Lianzhong World was back online. It even released a brand-new update patch. The first thing it did was to shut down the world chat channel and announce that all users who had purchased "horns" could choose a refund or exchange them for 10,000 Lianzhong coins.
Since earning 10,000 Lianzhong coins usually required hours of painstaking effort, almost no one chose to refund the small amount of money. Instead, they all opted for the 10,000 Lianzhong coins.
Secondly, Lianzhong announced that the membership system was temporarily suspended. Functions previously available to members would be open to all ordinary members. As for users who had already purchased memberships, even for several months or years, they could choose a refund or exchange them for Lianzhong coins at a ratio of 10,000:1.
At the same time, Lianzhong also announced that it would soon launch various single-player game match-making functions and asked all players to stay tuned. In any case, this really seemed like maintenance.
After two days of maintenance, a major change had been made. All the old users of Lianzhong were very satisfied with this. According to internal news, Lianzhong's decline stopped immediately after it went back online, and the number of users even began to rebound.
Some users who had abandoned Lianzhong and switched to oo returned. Although the experience on the oo game center was much better, many people were still nostalgic. They had grown accustomed to Lianzhong's atmosphere and environment and were unwilling to leave this familiar place.
As for how such a huge change could be completed within two days, the reason was simple: Brother Ma had brought all the elite members of Tengda's technical department to Beijing.
After driving away Bao Yueqiao and his subordinates, Brother Ma personally led the technical department to take over the entire software. They worked for two days and two nights without sleep. Without anyone to hand over or assist, relying on their own strength, each person was responsible for a part of the software to fully understand it and master various tools. With the help of some ordinary employees who hadn't left, they managed to grasp the entire code and control of Lianzhong in just two days, and they could even start rewriting code, adding updates, and ultimately creating this legendary feat in the industry.
It is said that after the task was completed, half of Tengda's technical department employees immediately started working in Beijing. At the same time, Zeng Qing was transferred to become the chairman of Lianzhong, thus completing the complete control of Lianzhong. As for Bao Yueqiao and his subordinates, they had no possibility of returning to Lianzhong.
It is said that on the night of the incident, Bao Yueqiao had called the police, reporting that he had been physically assaulted, illegally detained, and had his freedom restricted, demanding that the police arrest Brother Ma.
As a result, the police did indeed summon Brother Ma to the police station. However, after a brief investigation of the situation, Brother Ma was released on the spot.
This was because Brother Ma had committed no crime, and all the charges brought by Bao Yueqiao were unfounded.
For example, regarding physical assault, Bao Yueqiao had no injuries, nor did any of the employees. Therefore, it did not constitute physical assault.
Illegal detention was also impossible. Bao Yueqiao was only detained for less than 20 minutes before being released and regaining his freedom, which certainly had no relation to illegal detention.
As for restricting personal freedom, Brother Ma stated that he was Bao Yueqiao's boss and the chairman of the entire Lianzhong company.
He brought his security guards into his own company and asked his employees not to touch their computers and to sit quietly at their workstations. What was wrong with that?
As for Bao Yueqiao, he only asked Bao Yueqiao to leave his office and not to touch the company's public property. This was also an extremely reasonable request, and no one could say that Brother Ma had done anything illegal. Therefore, after his statement, Brother Ma was released, and Bao Yueqiao's angry complaints were of no use.
“Alas, I have to admit that Brother Ma is indeed a formidable opponent. I still have a fight with him!” Huang He, who received this news, was filled with emotion.
He had long known what kind of person Bao Yueqiao of Lianzhong was. Lianzhong's rise to its peak was thanks to Bao Yueqiao, but its eventual downfall was also due to Bao Yueqiao. Huang He knew very well how much trouble this person could cause, so he had never intended to truly invest in Lianzhong.
That was why he had tried every means to trick Tengda into it and had even scammed Tengda out of a huge sum of cash. He thought Tengda would be trapped in the big pit of Lianzhong, but he didn't expect Brother Ma to decisively cut ties and resolve Bao Yueqiao so dominantly. This way, although Huang He had drawn a lot of blood from Lianzhong, the foundation of Lianzhong was still there. In the future battlefield of game platforms, it was still unknown who would emerge victorious.
“Brother-in-law, there’s no need to be so pessimistic. Besides, our original goal has already been achieved. Ya Lian announced yesterday that it would close its servers in a month and stop operating its game platform, focusing all its efforts on introducing and operating online games.”
“With this, we are the sole player in the single-player game market. With no competitors in the entire market, our original goal has been achieved!” Leng Zhimeng said with a smile. “Moreover, brother-in-law, our game platform has already started to support our oo. Now, about 1,000 active users are flowing from our oo game center to oo every day. Simultaneously, the number of active users on our oo game platform has exceeded 3 million. Almost all single-player game players across the entire network are now in our grasp!”
“No, this is just the beginning!” Huang He said with a smile. “Remember, competitors can emerge at any time. If we don't find ways to permanently capture users’ hearts, we can’t always win.”
“Also, 3 million active users is still too small. In the future, the oo game center must have at least around 20 million active users to ensure the smooth progress of our next plan!”
“20 million… That’s a bit too exaggerated!” Leng Zhimeng stuck out her tongue.
“It’s not exaggerated. There are 30 million single-player game players in China now, but because they are used to playing pirated versions, and most of them don't need online games, they haven't joined our platform yet.”
“This is only the current data. The next few years will be an era of rapid development for personal computers and the internet. This base number will likely increase from 30 million to over 80 million. Breaking through 20 million is just the beginning for us! Therefore, we still have many things to do right now.” Huang He said, “For example, now, do you know what the biggest complaint players have about our products and where our user system is most unbalanced?”
“Uh, brother-in-law, you’re talking about the network issues for users in the north and south, right!” Leng Zhimeng blinked her eyes and said.
“You actually noticed!” Huang He looked at Leng Zhimeng with some shock.
“Of course. Unlike you, brother-in-law, I have to manage both online and offline. I only focus on our oo, so I know much better than you. However, brother-in-law, this problem is difficult to solve. After all, we are in Wenzhou, the southernmost part of the south. Northern users are too far away from us. We can’t reach them, and this is a problem that technical means cannot solve!” Leng Zhimeng complained.
The problem she called "can't reach" actually referred to network issues.
Many people will remember that when they first started playing games, games were divided into many different servers, usually named something like: South Telecom Zone 1, North Netcom Zone 1, South Netcom Zone 1, etc.
When choosing a server, one usually had to select it based on their network operator and location, otherwise, they would experience the legendary "lagging three times per second."
This was because in the past, when the internet was not yet well-developed, coupled with China's vast territory and significant north-south divide, network signals from the north would naturally be much slower and weaker when reaching servers in the south, and even weaker after being fed back through southern servers.
This problem was not a big issue for browsing web pages, but it was very fatal for online games that required low network latency.
Therefore, game companies were accustomed to building servers at several important network hubs across the country to serve users in the surrounding provinces, thus improving network speed.
“Since we can’t reach them, I’ll move the whip!” Huang He said with a smile. “This time, I’m going to build a Jiangnan network center in the north. This way, the north-south network will be balanced, and our network experience will be much better!”
“North, huh? Then where are you planning to go, brother-in-law?”
“Hmm, tentatively, Cao County!”