Chapter 6.13 Wednesday

Shanghai, Longyu Group Headquarters.

Zhao Xuming cautiously knocked on Eric's office door, then asked with considerable care, "The FV team's championship skins are finished. Can we prepare the marketing plan?"

Eric, looking preoccupied with other matters, wasn't enthusiastic about the championship skins. He waved dismissively. "Just handle it, Zhao."

Zhao Xuming nodded. "Understood."

He was about to leave when Eric added, "The summer sale is coming up soon. The Riot side plans to continue the promotional event globally. The championship skin promotion can be included in the summer sale."

"Especially in the iCL region. The discount can be a bit more generous. After all, it's the champion region. I don't think other regions will have any major objections."

Since it was the champion region, the champion skins naturally deserved a bigger discount.

Other regions dissatisfied?

Then go and win a champion title; you can enjoy this treatment if you do.

Zhao Xuming hurriedly nodded. "No problem, I'll also warm up the summer sale event!"

With that, he carefully closed the door and left.

Zhao Xuming was well aware that Eric hadn't been in a good mood lately, so he had to tread carefully.

Ever since the 515 Game Festival event last month, which they lost to Tenda, Eric had been in a state of anxiety and bewilderment.

Clearly, the matter had been a blow to him.

Initially, upon hearing the news that Tenda was selling its building, Eric had thought his plan was about to succeed and had nearly popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

But he never expected the situation to suddenly reverse in just a day or two!

As soon as the news spread that Tenda Group's cash flow was in trouble, many companies offered a helping hand, and Tenda's loyal users went on a spending spree, buying games and phones like crazy, and even the smart fitness clothes racks sold out!

As a result, President Pei passed the crisis without firing a shot.

Moreover, Tenda's 515 Game Festival event completely crushed the event co-organized by Riot and Longyu Group in terms of influence, discounts, and final reputation.

For Tenda, the money spent was a lot, but it well achieved its purpose.

But for Eric, it was a different story.

He also spent a lot of money, though not as much as Tenda, but it had already made the senior management of Dayak Group very dissatisfied with him. The most fatal thing was that this money-burning hadn't achieved the effect he wanted at all.

Although the money-burning had also attracted many users and won some reputation, it was far from what Eric wanted.

Eric was now facing a difficult situation both internally and externally.

After the IOI global finals, he had boasted and analyzed the situation to Dayak Group and Riot's senior management, trying to take Kletian’s place. But now, he had been in charge of IOI's national server for nearly half a year, yet he still hadn't made any substantial achievements.

This was too embarrassing.

Of course, Eric felt wronged about this matter.

It wasn't that he was slacking off; it was just that there wasn't much he could do!

GOG had long dominated the MOBA game market in the country, and various promotions had penetrated every corner through online and offline channels. It was almost impossible to steal people from GOG using traditional methods.

Unless IOI's game quality was significantly better than GOG's.

But the problem was that IOI's quality wasn't better than GOG's, and it was even inferior in many aspects such as player habits, hero recognition, cultural identity, detailed gameplay, and synergy between PC and mobile games.

In this case, no matter how much publicity funds were invested, it would just be like throwing money into a bottomless pit; it was useless!

Therefore, Eric's approach was to promote while competing with Tenda in burning money. When Tenda's cash flow couldn't hold up anymore, a turning point would come, and he could reverse the situation in one fell swoop!

But he didn't expect this to be the result in the end.

It felt like he was about to grind the Boss to death, but the Boss struck a pose, and its health was full again!

This made Eric's behavior seem very foolish, even a little inexplicable.

The impression given to outsiders was: he made a series of fierce moves, but his record was zero wins and five losses.

Therefore, within Dayak Group and Riot, voices of dissatisfaction with Eric appeared. To keep his position as the head of the Greater China region, Eric had to frequently communicate with headquarters and often had to make many compromises and concessions, which made it impossible for him to concentrate all his energy on his work.

Externally, Eric couldn't find a way to break the situation.

Tenda seemed too scary.

After the last minor cash flow problem, Tenda not only quickly recovered but also seemed to be completely unaffected in all its work.

Many projects, such as the snack market and large-scale experience stores, were still being promoted in an orderly manner, and the spending of money showed no signs of stopping.

It was as if the money-burning war with Eric had never happened.

Eric was confused and began to doubt himself.

Was it still useful to continue competing with Tenda in burning money?

He had been thinking about this question for more than half a month but hadn't figured it out in the end.

Therefore, the Longyu Group's promotional activities for IOI's national server were basically at a standstill. Apart from the daily essential promotional activities, such as the iCL League's promotion and the promotion of game update content, no major promotional activities were actively carried out.

It had been silent until now.

But life still had to go on.

Now, the FV team championship skin, which had been in production since March, was finally completed. Eric and Zhao Xuming both believed that they had to take this opportunity to promote it well.

After all, this was IOI's first set of championship skins, and it was also won by a Chinese team. If this promotional event was done well, it would be beneficial to attract more new players to the national server.

In terms of the game development speed in this world, it was obviously a bit long to make a set of championship skins in three months.

But there was a reason for this.

During the production of this set of skins, Riot's designers repeatedly communicated with the FV team members, hoping to be as perfect as possible. They not only listened to opinions at the beginning of production but also revised several versions during the production process.

After all, there were cultural differences between the East and the West, and there were also some communication barriers between the designers and the team members, so a lot of effort was spent on communication.

In addition, this set of skins had to be made as exquisite as possible, so it took such a long time without realizing it.

The designers at Riot and Eric were very satisfied with the final product.

This set of black and gold-style skins was absolutely cool and definitely the top-notch skins in IOI and GOG!

Eric and Riot's senior management had also struggled with what this set of skins should look like.

Some even suggested that the skins should be deliberately made ugly. After all, the FV team was President Pei's team. Wouldn't it be benefiting the competitor if the skins for the FV team were made too good-looking?

But this voice was quickly rejected.

Because this was also IOI's first set of championship skins, wouldn't it be even more embarrassing for Riot if they were made badly?

It could be said that this was a dilemma.

If they were made ugly, they would lose face first;

If they were made handsome, they would benefit others first.

This was very uncomfortable!

But after weighing the pros and cons, Riot could only swallow this loss and do their best to produce the skins, benefiting the FV team.

Now that the skins were made, such handsome skins naturally had to be well-publicized.

Zhao Xuming returned to his office, and his subordinates had already submitted a preliminary version of the championship skin promotion plan.

After carefully reviewing it, he added the relevant content of the summer promotion event.

According to Riot's arrangement, the summer promotion event would be launched in the last week of this month, which was June 26th.

At that time, IOI would have a large-scale discount event globally, so it was a good opportunity to give the championship skins a more favorable discount and earn some reputation.

Moreover, the iCL League would also usher in the spring season finals this month.

Although the start time was much later than the GPL League, the iCL League had fewer teams and a shorter schedule, so it would hold the finals at the end of this month, a week later than the GPL League, which happened to be during the summer promotion event.

Riot considered determining the spring season champions in each region during the summer promotion and launching a series of discounts on top of discounts for the champion lineup at the end of the summer promotion event.

If these three events could be combined, the promotional effect would definitely be very good.

But there was a small problem: the championship skins had already been made. If they were released during the summer promotion, it would be a waste of these two weeks, which would be very uneconomical.

After careful consideration, Zhao Xuming suddenly had a flash of inspiration and thought of a good solution.

The championship skins would be put on sale immediately, but its launch discount would be the same as during the summer promotion event!

This would kill two birds with one stone: it would take advantage of these two weeks, allowing the popularity of the championship skins to fully ferment, resulting in a good promotional effect that would continue until the start of the summer promotion; it would not affect the interests of the players who bought the skins at launch because of the summer promotion discounts, and it could also warm up the huge discounts of the summer promotion in advance, making players full of expectations for the summer promotion event.

Because the launch discounts for general skins were relatively low, around 20-30% off, while the summer promotion event had greater discounts, even reaching 50-60% off.

If the championship skins were sold at 20% off for two weeks, and then suddenly dropped to 50% off during the summer promotion, the players who bought them first would definitely be anxious.

But if the championship skins were not discounted or only discounted by 20% during the summer promotion, it would also be very strange.

Therefore, it was better to go all the way and set the launch discount for the championship skins to be the same as the discount for the summer promotion, so that players would still look forward to other skins during the summer promotion after buying the championship skins, and the promotional effect would be the best.

Moreover, the popularity of related promotions could continue until the end of the summer promotion and the iCL spring season next month, which seemed like a fairly perfect plan!

The more Zhao Xuming thought about it, the more appropriate it seemed. He immediately revised the promotion plan submitted by his subordinates and then took it to Eric for review.

Eric also strongly agreed with this plan. After all, this was also the most reasonable and efficient promotion plan in the current situation.