Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

At 5pm, the first performance of the ICL league officially began under the applause and cheers of the audience!

The host greeted the audience at the emcee and the live-stream passionately, trying hard to stir up the emotions of the audience.

Eric and Zhao Xuming felt very proud of themselves.

This was IOI's own league. We finally have a league that can compete with GPL!

It had to be said that the atmosphere at the venue was still very lively. After all, the staff in the ICL league were quite professional. The audience at the venue were all loyal fans of IOI. A small portion of them were specially hired to bring up the atmosphere in the audience. The applause and cheers were just right.

Zhao Xuming heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that the competition had successfully completed the BP and entered the game graphics without any hiccups. The huge rock that had been hanging in his heart finally relaxed.

He took out his cell phone and switched on Bunny Tail Live-Stream. He wanted to see how the live-stream was going.

Logically speaking, there should not be any problem.

As long as there were no problems with the event location, the signal transmitted to the live-stream would be OK. What other problems could there be in the live-stream other than being stuck?

Zhao Xuming opened Bunny Tail Live-Stream and quickly found the live-stream of the ICL league on the home page.

There were indeed a lot of recommendation resources. There was a very eye-catching banner on the homepage. There was also a special IOI game section. Once you clicked on it, you would be able to watch the ICL league live-stream. There was no problem in all aspects.

Zhao Xuming felt much more at ease.

Boss Pei might be a competitor and had just created a mess in ICS, but they had already signed the contract!

No matter what, Boss Pei was a very contractual person. He would definitely follow the contract.

However, he fell into a daze when he opened the live-stream and saw the number of people in it.

27,985!

It was a whole number, what's more, this number would constantly change, increasing and decreasing at times.

Zhao Xuming thought that he had seen wrongly. Was there a digit missing?

However, he leaned his face closer to the cell phone screen to take a closer look. After looking at it for a long time, he finally confirmed that he had not seen it wrong. It was a five-digit number. There were less than thirty thousand people watching it!

Zhao Xuming was stunned. He looked at the bullet screen comments in the live-stream. There were quite a number of them too?

There were all sorts of bullet screen comments. People were giving small gifts quite often too!

There might not be many gifts but this was the live-stream of a competition after all. There were not many people giving gifts in the first place. The key was still the density of the bullet screen comments.

There was not much of a problem from the density of the bullet screen. The screen of the live-stream was only so big after all. The bullet screen could keep rolling as long as there were a thousand living people. If there were ten thousand living people, the bullet screen could be filled. If there were tens of thousands of living people, the bullet screen would have to be split. Otherwise, it would affect normal viewing.

The ICL league had been advertising for a long time after all, and many IOI players would be attracted to watch it. It was normal for the number of bullet screen comments to be high.

What was with the number of viewers?

It would be too embarrassing if there were less than 30,000 people!

Other live-stream platforms had millions or tens of millions of viewers easily!

Even if it was a small-time broadcaster, he would be too embarrassed to greet them if he said that his live-stream only had 30,000 viewers.

Zhao Xuming's face fell. Boss Pei was actually lying in wait here?

There was no problem with the other publicity materials, but they secretly limited the number of viewers on the live-stream platform?

Obviously, the audience had also noticed this number. Many people were discussing the bullet screen.

"Isn't it exclusive? There are less than 30,000 viewers?"

"In other words, there are only thirty thousand people watching the ICL league in the entire world? Pfft, I'm sorry to laugh."

"Ai, IOI is still cold. Nothing can save it."

"It's far worse than GPL. I won't watch it anymore."

Zhao Xuming was very angry. Bunny Tail Live-Stream was too dishonest!

Needless to say, Boss Pei must have ordered it!

He had purposely lowered the popularity of the live-stream to create a feeling that the ICL was not popular. He had evil intentions!

Eric noticed this as well and his expression did not look good.

He had always had a PTSD mentality towards Boss Pei. He was afraid that Boss Pei would plot against him in certain areas, so he had always been on guard.

Zhao Xuming immediately called Chen Yufeng.

There was no need to be afraid even if Boss Pei was causing trouble. Both parties had signed contracts!

Zhao Xuming could immediately request for the live-stream of Bunny Tail to be changed if he was caught using such underhanded means. Otherwise, he could request for the contract to be terminated freely and terminate the cooperation between both parties.

Chen Yufeng's voice came through the phone very quickly. "Hello? Boss Zhao, you should have seen the live-stream of ICL, right? Is there a problem?"

Zhao Xuming laughed in his heart.

You still have the cheek to ask me what's wrong? Aren't you asking the obvious?

Zhao Xuming: "Boss Chen, this is not right!"

"Why did you restrict the popularity of the ICL league live-stream?"

Chen Yufeng was stunned. "Restricting popularity? No? Why would we do such a thing?"

Zhao Xuming was even more unhappy. How could he deny it?

"Boss Chen, how is it possible for it to be watched by only a little more than twenty thousand people! It's not even comparable to an ordinary small-time streamer on other live-stream platforms! How would the audience view the ICL league? How could the attention be less than an ordinary streamer? Do they think that no one would watch our league?"

Chen Yufeng smiled and explained, "Boss Zhao, you've misunderstood. This is the real data for the number of viewers!"

"We definitely did not restrict the popularity, nor would we restrict the popularity. The statistics in Bunny Tail's live-stream is real. We would definitely not fake it."

"As for the other live-stream platforms…"

"Their numbers are not actual numbers. A live-stream with three thousand people can be made into tens of thousands. A live-stream of twenty thousand people can be made to reflect five to six hundred thousand."

"Therefore, the ICL league should be around a million viewers if we calculate based on how the other live-stream platforms calculate."

Zhao Xuming opened his mouth, speechless.

According to Chen Yufeng, the live-stream's popularity could reach a million viewers. If the official platform falsified and adjusted the figures, the peak would be a little more than two million viewers. That would be about the same level of popularity as GPL on some small live-stream platforms.

If that was the case, there would be no problem.

However, the key was that based on what Chen Yufeng said, Bunny Tail Live-Stream did not seem to have any intention of helping the ICL league falsify data!

Zhao Xuming was speechless. "Boss Chen, do I have to talk about this?"

Chen Yufeng: "What about?"

Zhao Xuming: "Falsifying data! Do you as a live-stream platform not know about this? We should adjust the data upwards in order to make the audience feel that this is very popular, right?"

"There are no problems with the bullet screen comments now. There are no problems with the discussion. The live-stream is very smooth and not stuck at all. However, the popularity and the number of viewers…"

Chen Yufeng rejected immediately. "Oh, Boss Zhao, that's what you mean."

"I'm really sorry about that. Boss Pei emphasized that all of our data must be real when Bunny Tail Live-Stream was just established. We cannot fake it. I'm sorry, but we cannot make an exception."

Zhao Xuming was confused. "Not even once?"

Chen Yufeng: "Even once would make the website lose it's credibility. It would be useless even if we release real data in the future. I hope you can understand, Boss Zhao."

Zhao Xuming was speechless.

What a mess!

Chen Yufeng's words made sense. This was a principle that had been implemented since the establishment of Bunny Tail Live-Stream. It did not seem to be specifically targeted at the ICL league.

However, the problem was which live-stream platform did not fake data?

If it was not fake, the scene would be too shabby!

The less than 30,000 viewers made Zhao Xuming uncomfortable.

Zhao Xuming did not want to give up just like that. "However, our contract promised that you would cooperate with us to promote it. This popularity…"

Before Zhao Xuming could finish speaking, Chen Yufeng had already answered, "Boss Zhao, our contract did not say that we would help you produce fake data! I'm afraid that this cannot be considered as a normal marketing strategy, right?"

"Look, our live-stream platform has done all the publicity and promotion work. The effect is obvious to all. The bandwidth of the live-stream is not a problem. The audience's viewing experience can be guaranteed."

Zhao Xuming: "This…"

That seemed to be the case. The contract did not mention anything about faking data!

At the time, Zhao Xuming and Eric felt that since Bunny Tail Live-Stream had spent a huge sum of money to buy the exclusive broadcast rights of ICL, they would definitely do their best to promote it. After all, if the ICL was done well, it would bring a lot of popularity to Bunny Tail Live-Stream.

Making fake data was a specialty of live-stream platforms. How could there not be this aspect?

However, Bunny Tail Live-Stream really did not provide it!

Zhao Xuming said, "However, the publicity of the ICL league would definitely be greatly affected. The effect would be greatly reduced!"

Chen Yufeng chuckled. "Don't worry, Boss Zhao. We'll take care of the publicity for the ICL league. Nothing will go wrong!"

"You just have to observe for a few more days. The popularity will definitely continue to rise!"

Zhao Xuming hesitated for a moment but did not have anything else to say. He could only hang up reluctantly.

Eric saw Zhao Xuming hang up and asked, "What did they say?"

Zhao Xuming repeated Chen Yufeng's words.

Eric fell silent as well.

This was awkward.

Bunny Tail Live-Stream was indeed doing everything according to the contract. They were not at fault. Naturally, Finger Games and Long Yu Corporation could not terminate the contract directly.

Of course, they could also use that termination clause to pay the seven million yuan penalty.

However, the problem was that it was not worth it!

At the moment, Bunny Tail's live-streaming and publicity work for the ICL league was quite satisfactory in all aspects. The only thing was that the number of people in the live-stream was not fake. The real data looked a little hurtful.

However, was he going to throw away seven million yuan to terminate the contract with Bunny Tail live-stream just for this one reason? Return the exclusive broadcast fee? Then find other live-stream platforms to work with?

He would be crazy to do that.

Zhao Xuming and Eric were in a dilemma.

This was obviously not a big problem, but it was like a small bug crawling around in their hearts.

Eric thought about it carefully and said, "Let's wait and see for a few more days. We'll settle scores with Boss Pei if the effect is really bad and has a serious negative impact on the ICL!"