Chapter 270: The Interest Group Led by Mom

"Hero Glory's popularity keeps fermenting!

Seeing Hero Glory stirred up this much, Tencent's Interactive Entertainment Group leader Ren Yuxin held an internal general meeting.

Tencent's business group reform only went ahead this year.

This meeting was held only because they felt they seemed to have missed something—esports had never been taken seriously, and the ecosystem value Yutu had created let them see the prospects.

The meeting was underway; as for how it turned out, no one knew.

In any case, Yutu Games doesn't rely on them.

Anyone can make a game—any Tom, Dick, or Harry can make one. It's not like movies, which have to be screened in theaters; a game's terminal is the computer, the phone, in the individual's hand.

There are too many game companies now—too many to count.

It's just that Fang Hong has ambition; he didn't make those reskin games, he's heading toward premium quality.

Liu Tianxian's appearance in Hero Glory elevated the game, lifting its image and tier.

At least it's not a knockoff product—Liu Tianxian's class is right there on display.

But she isn't endorsing this game; Hero Glory doesn't need a celebrity endorsement either—she was only invited to serve as host.

Appearance fee of 500,000 yuan, for only about half an hour—that's all it cost!

She didn't expect there'd be extra money just from watching the competition with him. Liu Tianxian was quite surprised; originally she'd just meant to help Fang Hong out.

On the flight back to BJ, Liu Tianxian took a preserved plum from a small bag and put it in her mouth.

Then she took one and fed it to Fang Hong's mouth, eating as she said: "It's strange—you haven't taken advantage of me for free in the last two years."

"Strange? You like me taking advantage of you for free?" Fang Hong mumbled through a full mouth.

"I'm the one asking, don't keep answering with questions, okay?" Liu Tianxian patted his arm.

"Public is public, private is private. Private is between the two of us; public isn't between just the two of us—there are a bunch of people and teams behind it. For instance, you have a team behind you too, and stakeholders, so we still need to keep accounts clear."

Fang Hong said it plainly: "If you're willing to let me take advantage for free, the people behind you won't be happy, and if that causes conflict, what then? So public and private must be kept distinct."

"Oh my, quite the enlightened one!"

Liu Tianxian praised him, then said: "Then the money you owed me before, the IOU you wrote—is that private or public?"

"That's private, of course. If it were public, I'd have paid you back long ago," Fang Hong said.

"Hearing you say that, does that mean you don't have to pay it back?" Liu Tianxian said with a half-smile.

"I didn't say I wouldn't pay it back, just that I don't have money right now. When I have money, I'll definitely pay it back." Fang Hong wore the face of a seasoned deadbeat.

"Then when will you have money?" Liu Tianxian said.

"Who can say for sure? Maybe very soon, maybe never in my life," Fang Hong said.

"So you mean to owe me for a lifetime!" Liu Tianxian looked at him.

"Is that not allowed?" Fang Hong leaned in, smiling.

"Not allowed!" Liu Tianxian shook her head.

"Then how should I pay it back? What if I can't pay it back?" Fang Hong spread his hands.

"If you can't pay it back, I'll sell you off." Liu Tianxian tapped his brow with her finger.

"Then you're too heartless!"

"That's exactly how heartless I am."

Liu Tianxian blinked with a smile, leaned against him. Fang Hong took the cue and looped his arm around her neck, gently stroking her face with his hand.

Liu Tianxian now understood why this man, whenever he invited her to act, paid her a fee, and whenever he invited her to appear, also paid her.

It turned out he was being considerate of the interest groups behind her—that is, the interest group led by her mother.

Pretty good—he thinks far ahead, and considers many people.

Except for the first one or two films where no fee was paid, the later ones all paid—that was the startup phase, understandable.

Sometimes this man isn't great with words; he shows it through actions. When he does it, many people don't understand; only after it's done do they realize, oh, so that's what it was about.

Just as Tencent was holding its meeting, after returning to BJ, Liu Tianxian went home to lie down, while Fang Hong held a meeting inside the games division.

He spun off the games division and Bilibili as independent entities; from now on they wouldn't be called "divisions."

Instead, they'd be called Yutu Digital Technology!

These two divisions, spun off into one company, were meant to let games support Bilibili going forward—film and TV couldn't afford to.

No matter how well film and TV did, it couldn't afford to; the film and TV pie was too small.

With the establishment of Yutu Digital Technology, the organizational structure also needed adjustment. Besides games and Bilibili, a new esports division and a publishing division were set up.

The publishing division was to expand the game's name recognition, broaden channels, and market the game.

This division was still very important, but even more important was this esports division.

If this was done well, it would also be very profitable—and this profit had little to do with the game's own sales of virtual values, but rather other businesses.

For example, if a mouse and keyboard manufacturer wanted to print the Hero Glory logo on their devices, they'd need a license.

And all kinds of other computer equipment, as well as T-shirts, accessories, souvenirs, and the like—as long as it's licensed, money can be charged.

Of course, domestically at this stage you can't collect much money, but abroad you can—that's the power of brand influence.

Once the brand is out there and the ecosystem is built, you can earn money lying down.

In his past life, Tencent later relied on esports to earn over ten billion a year; it's just that their Honor of Kings never formed influence overseas.

If it had, it would have been absurdly huge.

Beyond this, there were event tickets, merchandise sales, media rights and broadcast rights, livestream rights, and all sorts of others.

Media rights, broadcast rights, and livestream rights couldn't be regulated or restricted for now—anyone who wants to broadcast, broadcasts; there's no restriction on which platform the game is broadcast on, and no licensing fee is charged. Livestreaming isn't mature yet, still in a growth phase; media and broadcast rights are even less mature. It'll take at least a few years—let it run wild for now.

Even so, setting up an esports division is very necessary—this is money earned beyond the game itself.

Moreover, the tournaments still have the Spring Split and Summer Split coming up, as well as various other events like All-Star, Intercontinental, and League matches.

All of these need someone dedicated to planning them—and that person is: Hou Miao.

Serving as the General Manager of esports.

This person currently works at IBM, serving as the General Manager of the Technology Business Division for Greater China and the General Manager of the China Business Region.

He didn't resign — he works at both places at the same time.

As long as the person has the ability and plans the future of esports well, Fang Hong can't be bothered to care how many companies he works for.

In his previous life, this person specialized in planning esports for Tencent, rising to Tencent's Vice President of Games.

But Tencent has many vice presidents — several in a single group chat — it's not that high a position across the whole company.

Li Min was promoted to President, continuing to develop and operate games, with an additional task of developing "Hero Glory Mobile."

The mobile version needs very significant adjustments — it has to be simpler and more user-friendly. For example, four skills on the PC version is too many; players can't tap them all in time. Simplify the hero skills down to three.

That makes it much simpler. Everything else is basically copied over. Even so, the workload is still enormous.

Because mobile phones don't compare to computers — the performance is far lower.

It's equivalent to adjusting and optimizing absolutely everything. It's still challenging — a major undertaking.

Fang Hong spun off the "Fortnite" project.

"Fortnite" invited Donald Mustard as Chief Creative Designer. This person was from Epic and got poached over.

In his previous life, it was he who took the once-troubled "Fortnite" and made it flourish.

But this game still copies the gameplay of Dataohasha and "Minecraft." The one who made Dataohasha flourish was "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds."

So before "Fortnite" comes out, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" needs to be brought out first, to give this person inspiration.

But there's no rush. First develop the underlying architecture, lay a solid foundation. Gameplay can always be designed later — the key is innovation at the foundational core.

Inviting him is only because he understands Western players. Fang Hong simply can't remember that much.

This person doesn't need to come to BJ to work. With the internet being so advanced now, remote direction and control are enough. Only if there's a problem that truly can't be solved will he fly over.

The games division's adjustments are complete. Next is Bilibili. Bilibili's founder Xu Yi and the others have always been the executors.

Whatever Fang Hong says, they do. They were originally tech guys by background — they started this out of passion.

Once they made money, they had other investments going on too — that, Fang Hong doesn't bother with.

Still, the interactive danmaku (bullet comments) this person came up with is pretty good — he's a guy with ideas, otherwise he wouldn't have succeeded.

Xu Yi continues to oversee technology. A new executive joined Bilibili — this person is called Zhang Nan, invited by Fang Hong, serving as Operations Officer.

Responsible for the platform's overall operations and content ecosystem development.

In her previous life, this person was Douyin's CEO — she deserves credit for developing Douyin.

In her previous life, she started a business making a photo community app, which was acquired by ByteDance, and only then did she become a member of ByteDance. In this life, she hadn't started her business yet before Fang Hong invited her over.

Following the trajectory of her previous life, she continues to oversee UGC business — that is, user-generated content.

Some people need training, need experience. It's not like just bringing the original team back means they automatically have all those ideas and experience.

Their ability is there — that's undeniable. What Fang Hong needs to do is provide the experience.

After an internal meeting, to encourage the platform to have more quality content and more content creators, Bilibili launched the "Creator Incentive" plan.

Any Bilibili user with 1,000 followers and videos with over 100,000 views can apply to join this plan.

Setting a threshold is to let users create content first, then join the plan — and to keep out the riffraff.

You can't just post any random video, get views, and get paid, right?

There will still be loopholes — suspicions of data manipulation. That problem doesn't need to be dealt with for now; we'll talk about it later.

This plan is meant to enrich Bilibili through content created by Up Masters, and incidentally attract traffic.

Developing step by step is too slow.

In the previous life, Bilibili only launched this kind of plan in 2018, after immense pressure from all sides that drained away a huge number of people.

This "Incentive Plan" sets the standard at 50 yuan per 10,000 views.

As for whether it goes up or down later — depends on the situation!

Also, view counts vary by video length. If someone makes a 10-second video and gets 10 million views, paying out 50,000 yuan isn't realistic.

It's unfair to content creators making videos of several minutes or over ten minutes long.

An algorithm is needed — it can only be adjusted gradually.

This is still in the exploratory stage. Even Bilibili in the previous life never figured it out properly — they won't figure it out in a short time either.

But this thing has to be done, because only this can fill Bilibili with endless content.

Rather than relying solely on sentiment/nostalgia and depending on Yutu Film Industry to produce shows.

That's how it is — solve problems as they come. Anyway, Bilibili's traffic at this stage isn't that exaggerated; Fang Hong can afford it.

Spinning off games and Bilibili for independent operation allows Yutu Film Industry to focus more purely on producing film and television.

(End of this chapter)