Warcraft 3 exploded, no doubt about it, in the Chinese market.
This was an unquestionable fact in my previous life. Just find any male player born in the 90s and ask them if they've played Warcraft 3, and 90% of them will give you the same answer.
Warcraft 3 can be said to have changed the entire gaming environment in China.
It was Warcraft 3 that ignited the e-sports trend in China, and it was Warcraft 3 that gave birth to Dota, which then gave birth to king-level games like League of Legends and Dota 2.
At its peak, two-thirds of the boys in any internet cafe were playing Warcraft 3. When the Warcraft movie was released in China in the future, its opening day box office would exceed 300 million yuan, breaking the domestic single-day box office record.
After that, the box office for three consecutive days was close to 300 million yuan, making everyone in the country believe that it would be the first movie in China to break 2 billion yuan.
Of course, due to the fundamental flaws of the Warcraft movie, its staying power was very weak, and the box office plummeted.
Many people like to talk about how powerful the Marvel Universe is in China, how many fans it has, and how it is the number one foreign cultural brand.
But that is complete nonsense. The so-called Marvel Universe concept in China, even before 2015, was merely the hobby of a niche group. The true first cultural universe, in fact, was the Warcraft Universe, which had the largest fan base and the most enthusiasts.
It's a pity that later, with Blizzard's self-destruction, there was no development or utilization of the Warcraft Universe, which caused the Warcraft Universe to decline.
By now, although many middle-aged people still cherish the Warcraft Universe and cannot forget it, the new generation, starting from those born in the 00s, has become completely indifferent to the Warcraft Universe. Instead, the Marvel Universe, which accompanied their growth, has gradually become larger.
Warcraft 3 in my previous life, without any prior promotion, and with its spread relying entirely on pirated copies and word-of-mouth, gradually grew and became stronger, essentially taking off from scratch.
But in this world, under the operation of our boss Huang He, Warcraft 3 has taken off directly from the summit of Mount Everest. In just one day, the reputation of Warcraft 3 has exploded in all relevant forums and circles in China.
Everyone was discussing the unimaginable gaming experience of Warcraft 3, genuinely praising how fun the game was, and everyone was an outstanding organic promoter.
The result was that people queuing for downloads had to wait until June 20th, a full month's wait, which shocked all domestic game manufacturers.
This was no longer the boy who cried wolf; this was Godzilla arriving.
At the same time, because too many people were trying to download it, many home computer users who had been queuing went to internet cafes to try their luck.
To their surprise, these internet cafes had already installed Warcraft 3. According to the internet cafe owners, OO's sales representatives had installed Warcraft 3 in the management systems of various internet cafes three days in advance, allowing players to enjoy Warcraft 3 at internet cafes.
Soon, players posted this news on various forums. Those players who were still desperately queuing abandoned their home computers and rushed to internet cafes to play games.
Suddenly, the entire internet cafe was filled with people playing Warcraft 3. Many people who were originally playing other games, such as Red Alert, CS, Quake, or World of Warcraft, which had completely dominated the internet cafe industry, watched in surprise as large numbers of Warcraft 3 users invaded their territory.
They first curiously glanced at others playing the game, and then those playing single-player games immediately closed the games they were playing and switched to Warcraft 3.
Players of World of Warcraft hesitated for a moment, and after being killed in a wild PK and dropping all their equipment, they angrily went to play Warcraft 3.
Then Chen Qiao of Shanda became depressed.
2002 was one of the hottest years for World of Warcraft. The World of Warcraft launched by him last year, after a year of fermentation, made him the hottest commodity in the entire game industry. An annual net profit of 400 million yuan made everyone so envious of Shanda that their saliva dripped onto their underwear.
At the same time, the concurrent online users of World of Warcraft also continued to climb. By the time Warcraft 3 was released, this number had reached an astonishing 1 million, leaving all online games at that time in the dust.
However, with the release of Warcraft 3, Chen Qiao found that the daily growth of active players and concurrent online users had begun to decline, and it declined severely. On the first day, it dropped by more than 200,000.
The second day was even worse. Out of 1 million, only 600,000 remained. Chen Qiao was so angry that he smashed his Dragon Slaying Saber.
Almost overnight, the official strategy website for Warcraft 3 was established. This was a website called "Azerothian Chronicles," which gathered many strategies related to Warcraft 3, especially strategies for campaigns, methods for passing difficult modes, and some hidden Easter eggs. It became a gaming bible for many players as soon as it went online.
In short, Warcraft 3 was capturing players at an unimaginable speed. Since playing Warcraft 3 required logging into the OO game platform, these users naturally converted into users of the OO game platform and OO, and all of them were very active online users.
Then, the people queuing directly extended to July, which made many players extremely frustrated.
Therefore, on May 20th, the fifth day after the game's release, OO announced an important piece of news: OO had made another difficult decision to urgently invest over 100 million yuan to purchase servers to improve players' download speeds. The reservation time for all players was advanced by about half. Players who had already made reservations could go to the website to check their reservation times again.
Then, those who had reservations until July found that their time had been advanced to around June 10th, while players who had reservations before June had their times advanced to within the 25th.
In an instant, the dissatisfaction with OO across the entire network greatly diminished.
But that was not all. Soon, OO released a second announcement, but this announcement was not for players but for pirates.
OO announced that OO would develop the replication rights for the Chinese version of the Warcraft 3 client. All individuals and groups could replicate their Warcraft 3 client on discs or other storage devices. Then, whether for gifting to friends or for commercial purposes, it would be legal and had been approved by Jiangnan Group, and OO would not pursue legal responsibility for these individuals.
Finally, OO also very considerately provided a bundled installation package in a separate location for download. This installation package was directly prepared for discs, and could be directly burned onto discs after downloading, which was very convenient and extremely thoughtful.
"They're officially allowing us to pirate?" Seeing this news, the pirates exclaimed with wide eyes.
"Give it up. If the official allows us to, then we are no longer pirates; we are legitimate game sellers!" another more intelligent pirate said righteously.
"But I feel very uncomfortable!" another pirate said. "We've always been the ones pirating from others, but now someone is urging us to pirate, it's like someone is forcing me to eat, and I'm very uncomfortable!"
"The one forcing you to eat is your mom!" the intelligent pirate rolled his eyes. "Forget it, I don't care about you guys. I'm going to burn discs now!"
"Oh yeah!" The numerous pirates suddenly realized and then activated their long-thirsty equipment. Almost on the second day, a large number of pirated... oh, no, officially authorized Warcraft 3 game discs appeared in batches in the market and were snapped up by a large number of players queuing, with astonishing sales. This allowed the pirates to at least make some money.
However, the more they earned, the more uncomfortable these pirates felt, and they swore in their hearts that they would absolutely not touch Jiangnan Group's games in the future. It was too damn uncomfortable.
Soon, with the help of these measures, by May 25th, OO Games announced once again that the game download was fully open, and users could download the game directly without queuing. Those who had originally reserved until July were able to successfully download the game around May 25th, praising OO with delight and calling OO the best game operator in the world.
Meanwhile, on May 25th, in Shenzhen, Guangdong, the OO Games National E-sports Championship City Championship Shenzhen Station competition kicked off in Shenzhen.
This competition had been advertised and promoted for more than a month, but its popularity was not great. This was because the competition currently had three different events: CS, StarCraft, and Warcraft 3. The popularity of these three games in China was not very high. Excluding the halo of bringing glory to the country, there were not many interested people. For example, until Warcraft 3 was released, the total number of registered players did not exceed 100.
However, with the release of Warcraft 3, after a large number of players were conquered by its high-quality gaming experience, the popularity of this competition became unimaginable. From the 15th to the registration deadline on the 22nd, over 1,500 players signed up for the competition, almost all of whom were Warcraft 3 players, indicating its immense popularity.
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This is trying to kill me!
Brother Ma watched the competition site, with tens of thousands of people围观ing the crowd gathered below his building, and bit his lip tightly.
Tencent's office is located in the Seg Science and Technology Park in Shenzhen, a place where many computer technology companies are clustered.
This Seg Science and Technology Park is adjacent to Seg Square, and the City Championship Shenzhen Station competition was held outdoors at Seg Square, right under Brother Ma's nose. Our Brother Ma watched, his lips almost bleeding from biting them.