Soon, this incident caused a stir, attracting increasing attention from more people, including major mobile manufacturers like Motorola.
The first to discover this public opinion event were Motorola's market maintenance and PR personnel. After the previous crisis, Motorola had gained a deep understanding and awareness of public relations and online PR. Edward Zamp immediately announced the establishment of an online PR crisis response team within the PR department, specifically responsible for handling online public opinion crises.
This team was quite responsible. They immediately reported the intelligence gathered online. The head of the PR department was overjoyed and promptly sent the report to Edward Zamp.
Normally, when encountering negative online public opinion, the PR department's first instinct was to suppress it if possible, trying to resolve it internally before reporting to senior management.
This was because, regardless of how the online crisis was handled, the PR department would inevitably face criticism. Therefore, they usually opted for suppression, only reporting to higher-ups when it became absolutely unmanageable, meaning the news had exploded and reached senior management, who would then see the scandal themselves by browsing online.
However, this was a scandal involving the 00 mobile game center, so there were no such concerns. The head of the PR department immediately reported the good news to Edward Zamp.
Upon seeing this news, Edward Zamp was also very pleased. He had been severely troubled by this mobile game platform recently.
Despite Motorola's stock price recently reaching a high of 80% and Edward Zamp receiving widespread praise, Edward Zamp knew that this was not entirely accurate.
The surge in Motorola's stock price was attributed to its sales performance in the first half of 2004. The scandals involving the 00 mobile game center and other issues had begun in early June. Therefore, they had not significantly impacted the first half of 2004 financial reports, leading to substantial year-on-year increases and a subsequent rise in stock prices.
However, if one looked at the performance reports from July onwards, the situation was far from ideal. While Motorola's mobile phone sales had increased by about 400,000 units compared to the same period last year, this growth, when compared to the 2 million unit increase in the first half of the year, was only about one-fifth. This growth rate would likely be perceived as negative growth by the board of directors and investors.
Smart individuals, by connecting the dots, could accurately deduce that the emergence of the 00 mobile game center had led to a significant decline in Motorola's mobile phone sales. This, in turn, would cast serious doubt on Motorola's development potential and likely cause its stock price to plummet.
Fortunately, it was only October, and Edward Zamp still had three months to salvage the situation. If he could launch his own mobile game center and boost sales, it could be explained away as normal sales fluctuations. Moreover, it could be promoted externally as Motorola's own mobile game sales platform, potentially even leading to a further increase in stock prices.
The problem was that their own mobile game development platform had been stuck in discussions for nearly two months. Formal development had only started a month ago, and it was reportedly more than half complete. The remaining half would require another month, followed by various testing procedures. It was uncertain whether it could be launched by the end of the year.
Therefore, Edward Zamp was under immense pressure. When he saw the negative news about the 00 game center, he couldn't help but smile.
"We must help these poor players!" Edward Zamp stated after browsing the internet for about half an hour and confirming that the online community was indeed expressing widespread criticism of the 00 game center.
"How can we help? Should we issue a statement to support these players?" the PR department head asked softly.
"That's necessary!" Edward Zamp nodded. "But a single report won't do much. We need to let more players know about this incident."
"And not just online. Don't players and users who don't usually go online have the right to know about this incident?" Edward Zamp retorted.
"I understand!" The head's face lit up with a smile, and he said loudly, "Mr. President, you can watch the news on various television channels tonight, and you will definitely feel the players' anger!"
"Excellent!" Edward Zamp nodded. In fact, such matters should not be handled by Motorola's own PR department but by his associates. However, the previous associate, Howard, had been reprimanded by him and their cooperation terminated.
He heard that Howard had recently become reclusive, even avoiding the company altogether. No one knew where he was, and even Edward Zamp couldn't reach him. Moreover, Edward Zamp lacked other resources in the short term, so he decided to roll up his sleeves and have the PR department handle it directly.
After all, it wasn't a major issue, just a matter of providing news material to the media.
Indeed, that evening, when Edward Zamp turned on the television, he saw that almost all news channels, to varying degrees, reported on the cheating incident concerning the 00 mobile game platform.
They even reported on the announcement made by the 00 mobile game center, emphasizing the company's tolerance and irresponsibility towards cheating. While they didn't directly blame the 00 mobile game center, their stance was clear.
These news programs reached over 70% of the American population, which was a fatal blow to the credibility of the 00 mobile game center. Edward Zamp was very satisfied with this.
The next morning, Edward Zamp woke up satisfied to find that the online discussions and anger had intensified, leading to another wave of activity on Weibo, even overshadowing the popularity of "Black Twilight," which was previously trending.
Below the Weibo account of the 00 mobile game center, the post related to this incident had accumulated over 3.3 million comments, the vast majority of which were scathing criticisms of the 00 mobile game platform.
Frankly, if one examined closely, over half of these accounts did not normally play games. They were clearly just jumping on the bandwagon, seizing an opportunity to criticize from a moral high ground.
Amidst such heat, an incident occurred that further fanned the flames: the name of the second-ranked player on the leaderboard also changed. It was an unfamiliar name, with a score of 1242 points, another astonishingly high score.
Seeing this, players exclaimed, "The second cheater has appeared! This cheat is starting to spread!"
Indeed, soon, the third and fourth high scores followed. Although these two scores were generally around 900 points, they still represented a significant gap compared to the original top-ranked player.
This completely ignited the players' fury. The Weibo account of the 00 mobile game center was bombarded with waves of criticism. Within an hour, the number of comments surged from 3.3 million to 6.8 million, effectively doubling.
The 00 mobile game center surprisingly did not disable comments, resulting in over an hour just to load the comments.
In response to this situation, the 00 mobile game center seemed to be faltering. They hastily issued a new announcement, stating that they were diligently investigating the truth of the matter and needed some time for the results. They urged everyone not to spread rumors or make extreme remarks, and to believe in the official stance against cheating.
The result was that this post instantly received an additional 4 million comments within an hour, all of which were criticisms of the official announcement.
Within the next 24 hours, the top 10 rankings were essentially replaced. It seemed that more and more people had obtained the cheat, not only pushing all the top 10 scores above a thousand points but also causing the top score to reach a chilling 1589 points.
Even discussions urging everyone to uninstall the 00 mobile game center began to appear online, prompting Edward Zamp to consider giving his PR director a raise.
Just as the situation seemed to be spiraling out of control, the 00 mobile game center finally, and belatedly, issued a third announcement, which read in its entirety:
"Recently, our company has received numerous player reports regarding abnormal leaderboard data for the game 'Bastard Bird' on our platform. Our company takes this matter very seriously and has initiated an immediate investigation!
We attempted to communicate with the player ranked first on the leaderboard but received no response. Simultaneously, we investigated all of this player's data and found no anomalies or signs of data tampering; the game data was normal.
Initially, this situation left our company baffled. Just as we were preparing to report the matter to the police, we successfully contacted the third player to reach the top 10 on the leaderboard. After communicating with this player, we learned that the reason for this situation was the updating of their gaming equipment.
It is understood that this player had recently purchased a new mobile phone. After experiencing the game 'Bastard Bird,' they discovered that this particular phone was exceptionally suitable for the game's operation, significantly reducing the operational difficulty, which led to a dramatic increase in their score.
Subsequently, we obtained this mobile phone and conducted usage tests. We found that, as the player stated, this mobile phone indeed reduces the game's operational difficulty, enhances game running speed, and improves game visual performance!
Upon learning the truth, we immediately reviewed the fair play guidelines that we signed with our players and found no clause that restricts the gaming equipment used by players.
As long as any player uses normal operating equipment that does not involve any form of data tampering, they are not violating the fair play guidelines, and their game results are authentic and valid.
In light of this, we declare that all player game scores on the leaderboard are authentic and valid, and these scores will not be canceled.
However, considering that the game performance of this mobile phone is indeed far superior to other phones on the market, causing some unfairness to players using other phones, we have decided to split the original single leaderboard.
The scores of all players using this mobile phone for gaming will be ranked on a separate leaderboard. This leaderboard will be called the High-Performance Gaming Phone Leaderboard. The original leaderboard, after excluding these players, will be renamed the Standard Performance Phone Leaderboard.
This notice serves as our company's final decision. If no other issues are discovered, we will not provide any further comments, responses, or penalties regarding this matter.
We thank all players for their continued support of our platform. We will, as always, adhere to our commitment to our players and provide the highest quality gaming services.
Thank you!"