Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

March 10th, Saturday…

The ICL league was about to officially start today.

Eric and Zhao Xuming arrived at the ICL league venue once again on Long Yu Corporation's side. They were waiting for the official opening of the ICL league and the two key opening battles today.

At the same time, they were also paying attention to the public opinion online. They were extremely optimistic about the opening ceremony of the ICL league today.

The ICL league had already played two exhibition matches on Wednesday and Thursday. Its popularity was steadily increasing.

Especially since the world champion FV Team was on on Thursday, the number of live-streamers exceeded 60,000.

A mere 60,000 yuan did not give people much of a feeling, but Zhao Xuming made an issue out of the fact that other live-stream platforms were faking the data. He successfully established an impression in netizens' hearts that the data on Bunny Tail Live-stream was real and that the data on other platforms were fake.

This way, the audience would no longer pay attention to the exact number of people on the live-stream platform. Instead, they would focus on other data such as the number of bullet screen comments on the live-stream. They would successfully eliminate the shortcomings of "fewer live-streamers" and label the ICL league as "real".

All in all, the situation was great!

The initial preparations were done. Today was Saturday, and the ICL league officially began. Success or failure depended on this.

Bunny Tail's live-stream was real and could not be faked, Zhao Xuming was not worried that the popularity would drop today.

It was Saturday today after all. There would be more viewers watching the competition during the holiday. What's more, it was the opening ceremony of the ICL league. The official platform had arranged a series of viewing and lucky draw events, including the team's appearance, official documentary, celebrity interview, and so on. The popularity would definitely be higher than on Thursday.

On the other hand, the BO3 of the second key battle would still be played by FV Team and SUG. It was enough to ensure that today's competition was the highlight.

Zhao Xuming was in a good mood.

He had been very tired while preparing for the ICL league, especially with the broadcasting rights. Fortunately, the dust had settled. He just had to lie down and wait for the ICL league's popularity to increase.

Soon, the ICL league officially began!

The live audience was still seated. Amidst the warm applause and cheers, the captains of the various teams stepped onto the stage. The host enthusiastically introduced the preparation process of the ICL league, the participating teams, and the bright prospects. The various sections of the opening ceremony progressed in an orderly manner.

Zhao Xuming sat in the first row of the audience seats. He looked at every member's face up close and enjoyed this moment.

He took out his cell phone and planned to watch Bunny Tail live-stream after that to see how popular he was today.

Zhao Xuming clicked on the live-stream of the ICL league and immediately saw the number of viewers: 78,525!

Nearly 80,000!

Zhao Xuming could not help but raise his brows as joy filled his heart.

80,000 did not seem like a lot but everyone knew that the number of people watching Bunny Tail live-stream was real.

No one would think that 80,000 people watching the competition was less popular than eight million people. Instead, they would subconsciously draw a ranking in their hearts.

Compared to Thursday's 60,000, the number of people watching the ICL league increased again. This was undoubtedly a good sign!

The bullet screen was filled with comments. It was enough to show how popular the ICL league was.

These bullet screen comments were all real after all. There were no fake bullet screen comments. Each bullet screen represented a real person watching the ICL league.

However, Zhao Xuming was stunned when he saw the comments.

"Wow, ICL's popularity today is not bad. It's actually a quarter of the GPL league!"

"The ICL is an opening ceremony, alright? It's normal to see more people."

"Who gave you the illusion that the crowd from ICL is similar to GPL people? Obviously, ICL league has already surpassed themselves with 80,000 people."

"I'm here to watch the GPL league and also here to visit."

"I thought that 70,000 to 80,000 people would be quite a lot, but it looks like it's only average now. It can't be compared to GPL!"

"It looks like the bullet screen comments would be more or less alright as long as there are more than 30,000 viewers. They would all be distributed. However, the number of viewers in the live-stream would not lie!"

"There are so many people on the first day of Bunny Tail live-streaming GPL. How many people would watch the live-stream GPL platforms?"

Zhao Xuming was stunned when he saw the bullet screen comments.

What was going on?

Why were the people in the live-stream talking about GPL?

All of a sudden, Zhao Xuming recalled that he had requested for Bunny Tail to live-stream the GPL league at the same time when he signed the contract!

Could it be…?

Zhao Xuming quickly exited the ICL's live-stream and successfully found the GPL's live-stream in the live-stream list.

As expected, the GPL was also being broadcasted!

He looked at the number of viewers in GPL's live-stream, 335,879!

Zhao Xuming almost thought that he had seen wrongly. He took a closer look and finally confirmed that it was a six-digit, 330,000 people!

It was four times the ICL league!

What's more, today was only the first day of the GPL league's official broadcast on Bunny Tail.

"300,000 viewers on the first day? That's ridiculous!"

"Could Tengda have arranged for other publicity events?"

Zhao Xuming quickly returned to the front page of Bunny Tail Live-Stream and searched for related promotional content online.

The most eye-catching spot on the front page of Bunny Tail's live-stream was still the ICL league promotional material. On the other hand, the GPL league promotional content could not be seen at all.

There seemed to be no related publicity on the internet.

Zhao Xuming did not believe it. He continued searching and finally found clues in the discussion forum.

Tengda Corporation seemed to be promoting GOG in the game!

GOG was a dual-terminal game. The data on the PC and mobile games were interconnected. In fact, there was no special publicity. There was only a promotional picture of Bunny Tail Live-Stream on the homepage after the game's program entered. One could jump to the webpage with a click. There was also additional professional data that one could see more backstage during the bunny tail live-stream!

Zhao Xuming clicked on GPL's live-stream once again. Indeed, he found a small bubble in the upper right corner of the original live-stream. When he clicked on it, a small window would pop up.

There were two pages on this small window. They were 'internal data' and 'historical data'.

Internal data was mainly the real-time data of the current game, and historical data was the data of a certain hero or team throughout the entire season.

All of these data were presented in a very graphical form. One could browse the data in different aspects by moving them up and down. What's more, these data were still changing in real time.

After every team battle in the competition, one could see the output data of the team battle and the economic changes of the heroes in each position.

The bullet screen comments in the live-stream rolled quickly. There were many discussions about this new function in the discussion of the competition.

"What do you mean by professional live-streaming platforms? Brothers, put your professionalism on the public chat!"

"Let me say something. Those who are watching the competition live-stream at Bunny Tail are professional viewers. Are you guys alright?"

"With these data, it is obvious who is the one in the limelight and who is the one not faring well. The slackers would have nowhere to hide."

Apart from these discussions, all sorts of numbers could be seen floating on the bullet screen after each team battle. Obviously, it was more convenient to play with the digits with this function.

Zhao Xuming used this function slightly and felt that it was really useful!

These data would normally only float in the upper right corner as a small floating bubble. It would not affect the competition. Once the team battle ended and both sides calmed down and developed, the audience could open the floating bubble to take a look at the internal data and search for more interesting data.

What's more, these figures were moving according to the competition's progress in real time. It gave people the feeling that God controlled the overall data. It was obviously different from the dry viewing experience of the other live-stream platforms.

It was precisely because of the promotional page on GOG's game client and the real-time data function of Bunny Tail Live-Stream that attracted a large number of viewers!

Zhao Xuming was completely stunned!

Didn't we sign a contract to fully promote the ICL league?

The reason why he asked Bunny Tail Live-Stream to put the GPL league on Bunny Tail Live-Stream was mainly as an insurance and because he was afraid that they would cause trouble!

However, the number of people watching the GPL league was four times that of the ICL league. The difference in popularity between the two sides was obvious!

What the hell was happening?

Zhao Xuming realized that all the preparation work he had done previously seemed to have been earned by the GPL league!

Previously, he had hired fake reviewers to create momentum on the internet and work hard to popularize the inside story of the live-stream platform 'faking data'. That was to give everyone the impression that 'Bunny Tail Live-Streams are all real data'. That would then prove the viewpoint of 'there are many people watching the 80,000 ICL league'.

At first, these few steps had been very smooth. They were about to boost the popularity of the ICL league, but they had not expected the GPL league to jump out and pick fruits!

If the 80,000 viewers for the ICL league were all very popular, then what about the 330,000 viewers for the GPL league?

Wouldn't the ICL league be destroyed?

What's more, this was only the data of Bunny Tail's live-streaming platform. There were also ZZ live-streams, Waiwai live-streams, Wolf Fang live-streams, and so many other platforms watching the GPL league at the same time.

The difference in numbers was probably about ten times, right?

Of course, the people who were on Bunny Tail Live-Stream must have been attracted from other platforms. However, the popularity statistics of other platforms were fake. No one could tell that the popularity of other platforms had decreased.

Thus, all the preparation work that he had done previously seemed to have benefited the GPL league…

However, Zhao Xuming could do nothing about it.

That was because Boss Pei had indeed given almost all of the resources for the ICL league, including various recommendation resources, according to the contract's regulations. Even the homepage had the ICL league promotion banner hanging all year round.

Zhao Xuming and Eric were the ones who requested for Bunny Tail to broadcast the GPL league.

What's more, Boss Pei had not really promoted the GPL league. He had only put a promotional page guide in the game and specially developed a small program for the game's data.

However, the final outcome was completely unexpected. The ICL league had been laying the groundwork for so long, and all its popularity had been stolen by the GPL league!

The most annoying thing was that this behavior was completely in line with the contractual rules.

Strictly speaking, the ICL league did not have much loss. It was still profitable as a whole. However, most of its popularity had been taken away by GPL and Bunny Tail Live-Stream.

In other words, Eric and Zhao Xuming had originally thought that they were making a killing. In the end, they realized that they were only making a small profit. The real winner was Boss Pei.

As for the losing parties, it was obviously the other live-stream platforms!

Zhao Xuming leaned back in his chair dejectedly. "It's over. No matter what we do, Boss Pei is still one step ahead of us! We've been tricked by Boss Pei again!"