Chapter 1037: Darkness Descends

"I'll be the host?!" Liu Dawei was quite surprised, "But I've never done anything like this before. I'm a professional at coding, but I'm probably not very good at this."

"You won't know if you're capable unless you try."

Luo Quan smiled and advised: "Besides, your studio will eventually have to split from Blizzard Studio, and by then, you three as leaders will definitely need to be able to stand on your own.

Just like Li Jiang now—whenever those games have major updates, doesn't he make videos to announce them to players? It can't be that everything will be left to me from now on, can it?"

"That's true too." Liu Dawei nodded. With so many company matters, it really isn't appropriate to bother the boss with everything.

Anyway, Wen'an and such have already been written up. Two days of preparation, plus it's a recorded broadcast, so there's no need to worry too much.

After convincing Dawei, Luo Quan opened her computer and wanted to check Bilibili's stock trend.

After yesterday's market open, Bilibili's stock experienced a brief decline, which should have been caused by those clueless overseas shareholders selling low.

But in less than half an hour, the stock began to surge rapidly, and by market close, it had risen by twelve percent, creating the largest gain in nearly half a year!

Unlike the domestic stock market, US stocks have no limit on their rise.

If a domestic stock's single-day gain reaches ten percent, it triggers a limit-up, after which it won't rise further.

But US stocks are much freer—as long as the momentum is good, the stock can keep rising.

Historically, the highest single-day gain for a stock reached seventy-six percent, nearly doubling.

So Bilibili's twelve percent gain already looks exaggerated, but there's still room for growth.

When the market opens tonight, the stock will definitely continue rising, and breaking the twelve percent record just set should be highly probable.

And this time's stock surge, Luo Quan's fans contributed a lot of capital.

They actually don't know much about stocks, and their affection for Bilibili hasn't reached the point of blindly buying shares.

But they believe in Luo Quan, knowing full well that this human golden carp's investments always yield more gains than losses.

Going against her doesn't necessarily bring bad luck, but following her will surely bring good fortune.

Before this, there were already N cases proving this point.

Anyway, those few old brothers who claimed yesterday they'd leverage to buy Bilibili stock are now popping champagne—having a full basin and overflowing tub doesn't even describe how much money these madmen made after winning their bet.

No one knows how long this level of gain can last, but Luo Quan said welfare distribution will last seven days, so it's definitely safe within those seven days.

Thus, more and more retail investors have poured in.

As for those big capitals, as soon as they heard Luo Quan accepted, they immediately invested.

They don't believe in luck or golden carp nonsense—they only know Luo Quan has abundant funds and holds a large amount of exclusive film and TV resources.

For a video website, exclusive resources equal user numbers.

With user numbers, who worries about not making money?

Therefore, from a benefit perspective, Bilibili's current stock is absolutely worth buying.

Precisely in this environment where everyone is optimistic, Bilibili's night market opening achieved a twelve percent gain in less than four hours, surpassing yesterday's newly set record.

At this time, Cheng Rui, who hasn't slept yet, looked at the thriving stock, and his heart was filled with mixed emotions.

Since the beginning of last year, Bilibili's stock has never looked this good—almost every day it's been declining to varying degrees.

Speaking of which, it's ironic—he's thought of countless methods this year to save Bilibili's stock price, but none worked, and even users have been cursing him.

And now that he's just sold Bilibili, everything has instantly improved.

Looking at it this way, this former CEO really is a failure.

After sighing, he put down his phone and prepared to rest.

Even after stepping down as CEO, there are still some benefits—at least his schedule no longer needs to be as irregular as before.

What dreams, career, struggle—ultimately, the body is most important; one cannot neglect oneself while neglecting others………

Lunar December 26, 2020—this is a day that all domestic mobile games will remember.

Because darkness has descended.

From today onward, the days of easily harvesting leeks with a few deceptive CGs and some reskinned elements are coming to an end.

At noon, Luo Quan opened her live stream as usual.

Today, Bilibili closed with a seventeen percent gain, market cap returning to two hundred billion—worthy of celebration.

But this little achievement isn't worth getting excited about for Luo Quan, after all, Bilibili's peak stock price was more than three times this.

Before returning to its peak, no achievement is worth popping champagne over.

"Bright Sword, Wu Lin Legends are already online on Bilibili—non-members can watch five episodes."

Luo Quan rubbed her hands, began clearing her throat: "Cough, cough, next I want to announce the third gift.

The ACG mobile game *Genshin Impact* developed by Mihoyo Studio has entered testing phase. The promotional CG will be released shortly, and tomorrow developers will give everyone a detailed introduction to the game's features and gameplay.

The A-test will be scheduled for one week from now—everyone can now sign up enthusiastically."

This time, it's the turn of all gaming enthusiasts to get excited:

"Is this the ACG mobile game you mentioned earlier?"

"I don't care about gacha pay-to-win games, won't play them, but if it's developed by Luo Bao's company, I can pay attention."

"Whether I pull cards or not doesn't matter—as long as it's fun, that's fine. Anyway, I'm Leopard Head Zero Charge!"

"Haha, if I really fall into this pit, then whether I charge or not will no longer be up to me."

"I just want to know if this game has many pretty girls."

"If the art style could reach the level of Azur Lane, that would be great."

"Hehe, you're dreaming beautifully."

………………

For ACG games, the most important element is naturally to cater to otaku.

Whether it's otaku men or women, winning their favor is what makes them willingly spend money.

Everyone knows GHS is the first productivity, so high visual appeal and sexy female characters are forever the tools for harvesting revenue.

Luo Quan couldn't guarantee anything else, but after securing special privileges from Director He, she personally assured the artists at Miha Studio that they could be a bit bolder when designing characters.

The finished product Luo Quan saw was still quite satisfactory; otaku with normal tastes definitely couldn't refuse these female characters with high looks and good figures.

Not long after Luo Quan announced it here, Genshin Impact's first PV — "The Extraterrestrial Traveler Who Caught the Wind" — was released.

Countless 2D game fans full of anticipation clicked the video, first seeing a stretch of darkness, then an urgent, girlish call rang out.

"Hey, wake up!"

The protagonist opened his eyes to a blond, oddly dressed youth.

He lay on a sandy beach, a white Emergency Food with a halo floating before him.

With a flash of the scene, the two stood on a hillside; the camera pulled back, and Teyvat's vast, mysterious, beautiful world filled the view.

Up to here, this CG didn't show anything extraordinary.

Other major studios' mobile game CGs were far more gorgeous; by comparison, Genshin's CG looked underfunded, not particularly outstanding.

People with this thought weren't few, until they saw that line of text in the video's lower right corner: In-Game Engine Footage.

The bullet comments erupted at this moment:

"Holy crap, are these all in-game footage?"

"You're telling me this is a mobile game?!"

"What a joke, which mobile game can make a map this big, and from the looks of it, it's still a seamless open world!"

"If this is in-game footage, I'll eat shit on a livestream!"

"No wonder they dare call it an open world, it actually has some substance."

"Can phones really run this?"

"Judged by mobile game CG standards, this video quality is average.

Judged by domestic mobile game standards, this mobile game is a dimensionality reduction strike!"

"I glanced at the paper waifus in my phone and fell into deep thought."

"This really shocked me stupid, what mobile game can reach this level!"

……………………

Good things are all brought out by comparison.

Genshin's CG is nothing compared to other mobile games' flashy melody effects, but add "in-game footage" and its prestige instantly jumps several tiers.

Similarly, Genshin's open world actually falls far short of PC 3A masterpieces.

But compared to mobile games, the two are in completely different dimensions.

Imagine if you could shrink games like Final Fantasy or Red Dead Redemption into a phone to play — how awesome would that be?

That's exactly what Genshin did.

Of course, limited by phone performance, graphics definitely have to be castrated.

But regardless, this represents a milestone, representing the arrival of a new era!

Of course, for other 2D mobile games, this is a true dark reward.

When Genshin officially launches, wanting to happily harvest leeks like before won't be so easy.

Players' tastes will be raised pickier and pickier; ordinary reskin mobile games will become increasingly hard to survive against peers' foil.

Don't think this is alarmist, because the domestic market is only this big; when a behemoth starts siphoning, those other shrimps will struggle to have a foothold.

What's more painful is, besides watching this happen with wide eyes, they seemingly can't do anything at all.

If it were a fledgling studio, or a small factory with no backing, they could still hire water armies, steer rhythm to smear this game.

If they could make its reputation stink, make players boycott it, there's still a chance to make it die violently.

After all, small factories' risk resistance is too low; developing such a game probably already emptied their coffers; if launch revenue looks bad, that's a catastrophe.

Even if players later find its quality actually okay, wanting to save it probably won't be in time.

But Genshin's developer isn't a small factory.

Although Phantom Studio is called a studio, its backer is Quan Shui Entertainment Company.

This company's turnover exceeded 10 billion last year, and it cooperates with many international major companies.

If they hire water armies to tear at each other, they might not even tear better than them.

But if they really let it be, let it grow big, isn't that watching the market get invaded bit by bit by this game?

In commercial war there's no charity; in the same genre it's either you die or I live.

One game's rise represents another old game's decline, never an exception.

What worries these game manufacturers more is, Genshin's developer's boss just acquired Bilibili.

What is Bilibili? It's the largest domestic 2D gathering place, and also the promotion ground for the vast majority of 2D mobile games.

A 2D mobile game wanting to get popular absolutely cannot bypass Bilibili.

And owning Bilibili's resources, Genshin will surely gain huge heat in a short time, because here are all the players who love this type most.

Game and Bilibili are both self-owned, now even ad fees are saved, trending searches arranged daily, game quality so explosive — what grand scene after launch?

Manufacturers' scalps tingle just thinking about it.

At this moment, even knowing Genshin has backing, some still decided to act.

Soon, while the whole net heatedly discussed Genshin's stunning CG, voices accusing it of plagiarism sprouted like bamboo shoots after rain.

"Don't you think this art style looks like Zelda?"

"Indeed, you didn't say it and I'd have thought it was one game."

"Such strong deja vu, this grassland, these colors, isn't it plagiarism?"

"Originally quite happy a domestic masterpiece came out, but this is truly too disappointing."

………………

Similar appraisal videos kept emerging one after another, and soon stirred up a huge uproar online.

Countless people began to rage, saying isn't this just Zelda, isn't this blatant plagiarism?

Weibo, Bilibili, Tieba, Some Zhihu, and all game-related media saw similar remarks appear.

The good news was that the media were only reporting the online accusations; for the time being none dared to pass definitive judgment, which also kept opinion guidance from reaching an especially terrible state.

Most critically, Genshin's boss was a "mother T-rex" who couldn't tolerate a grain of sand in her eyes... no, she should be called a female war god.

Miss Luo Quan had anticipated plagiarism accusations; if this game had been calm from trailer to open beta she would have been worried sick, because the heat would have fallen short of expectations.

Controversy brings traffic, after all.

But that didn't mean she would play deaf and mute, letting public opinion be manipulated.

In the evening, she continued her livestream, then publicly declared in the stream:

"Those saying Genshin is plagiarized, come to the stream and tell me — where exactly is it plagiarized? I have a closed-beta account, I'll play it right in front of you!"

This domineering statement instantly boosted the morale of fans who had been stifled all afternoon.

Miss Luo Quan was still Miss Luo Quan, after all — she never lets a grievance wait until the next day.

And face-slapping just happens to be one of the things she excels at most.