Chapter 271: The End of Days Has Come—Please Run Away With Me

Bilibili's "Creator Incentive Program" only requires sending a letter to all creators and posting an announcement on the site.

It drew some coverage from internet media, but didn't cause much of a stir—it's basically the same model as YouTube.

It's just that no one in China does it this way, because this model isn't very profitable. YouTube has Google backing it; their market is mature, with paid subscriptions, copyright partnerships, and licensing—they can turn a profit.

And Google's ad model was already mature to begin with.

In China, paid subscriptions, copyright partnerships, and licensing just can't be done—Chinese people love freeloading, they read pirated novels and then come online cursing the author as an idiot.

Where can you even argue your case?

Anyway, Fang Hong went ahead and did it, prepared to lose a few hundred million in a year, pouring all the money earned from games into it. In the eyes of those capitalists, this is unacceptable.

It's equivalent to giving money from the rich to the poor—a sin!

It's all just beginning; at this stage, it can't lose that much, simply because the market isn't mature yet.

After the launch, Bilibili really did get a lot more ghost-edit videos.

October's entertainment circle kept dropping bombshells—first the "Jin Tong Yu Nu" incident, which made a huge uproar, then the Wang Ziwen drunk-driving incident, and the "Jingang" grand wedding.

And Zhen Huan Zhuan winning the Huading Award sparked another wave of Zhen Huan fever.

It made people feel that the entertainment circle really knows how to play.

After Tencent finished its meeting, a fellow employee introduced that this meeting was supposedly about responding to Yutu Games, but it was more like a post-mortem review.

The whole thing was filled with self-criticism and reflection; the leaders on stage couldn't go three sentences without mentioning Hero Glory.

The focus of discussion was: "Why can't League of Legends beat Hero Glory?"

The president of TiMi Studio Group stated: "The success of Hero Glory indirectly validates the rationality of TiMi's current strategy. We should put more energy into mobile games to break through the encirclement."

In other words, continue executing the mobile game strategy—bet everything on the mobile side to make a MOBA game.

Relying on Riot won't work, we still have to rely on ourselves; that broken company is just a shoddy troupe.

The meeting established the focus on developing mobile MOBA!

And it's still that same poison-competition model—both studios develop, whoever wins gets the support.

All People Super God and Hero Trace are the two poison-competition projects.

There's no Honor of Kings yet now; it was only later, after Hero Trace won, that it was renamed.

You have to know, at that time Tencent was betting on All People Super God and promoting it heavily, sending Hero Trace back to the oven, because Super God's data was better than Hero's.

It was Super God that introduced a hero-training system, forcing players to spend money like crazy, which got them abandoned by players. It was precisely then that Hero Trace, renamed Honor of Kings, came from behind to take the lead.

This is Tencent's nature—a dog can't change its habit of eating shit.

But then again, only Tencent dares to play this way—if one fails, bring in another. What other company dares to play this way? Who has that many resources? That much money?

Having two games compete at the same time requires a lot of resources and a lot of money.

Not to mention anything else, just the manpower alone is burned up—one studio is destined to be working for nothing.

Fang Hong can't afford to play like this. If you asked him to develop two identical competing games at the same time, throwing money and resources at them, he just doesn't have that much energy.

It's not just Tencent that has MOBA projects—Pig Factory has Vanity, other companies have Freedom Battle, Hero Blood War, a bunch of MOBAs, both domestic and overseas, all crowding in.

The market is changing, yet Tencent's higher-ups still follow the strategy of "if we can't beat them, just throw money at them." Strategic investment officer Liu Zhiping stated he wants to buy into Yutu Digital Technology.

Name your own price, and he even said they could give up League of Legends.

But Li Min blocked it, saying they don't lack money.

When contacted, Fang Hong made excuses saying he was sunbathing in Aruba, not in the country, the signal was bad there, let's talk when he's back.

What the hell kind of country is Aruba? Never even heard of it.

A check shows it's a Dutch territory on the Caribbean coast!

Actually, Fang Hong was in the country, he just couldn't be bothered to argue with these people—if the argument goes badly, they'll hold a grudge.

Anyway, that's how it stands. Fang Hong won't let Tencent in to take a share of the pie. Looking at a profitable business, why would you let others in to split the money?

On what grounds? Just because Tencent has a thick face?

Anyway, one is in Shenzhen, one is in Beijing. Although Yutu can't compare to Tencent's behemoth, it's still a foreign-exchange-earning enterprise—who's afraid of whom?

Time moved into November. The movie "Fall," distributed by Universal, has been screening globally for two weeks.

It took $22 million at the box office opening weekend, $16.81 million the second week, for a current global total of $38.81 million.

It's yet another dark horse low-budget film of the year!

This movie doesn't have many special effects shots—just two women filming at high altitude, so it's very simple.

It's just that the scenes are rather scary, all done with practical filming.

The actors didn't really climb that high; the set built for the actors was only about 30 meters, and another set was built at the edge of a cliff.

Some special effects were added in post-production, but it's all practical locations.

Only practical locations can give the audience that immersive sense of horror.

This movie isn't planned to be brought into the domestic market. Bringing it in would definitely require cuts, and it wouldn't get a good release slot, so it wouldn't get much box office.

In the previous life, when it was brought in, it only got a little over 20 million at the box office, and that was ten years later when the market was big enough.

So there's no point bothering—as an imported film, it wouldn't earn much.

Just like Yutu Film exporting to Southeast Asia and South Korea doesn't earn more than the domestic market—both exports and imports have limits.

Time entered this month, the New Year Slot is approaching, and the movies locked in for the New Year Slot have entered their competitive publicity period.

Huayi's "1942" is locked for November 29, "CZ12" is locked for December 20.

The two movies are spaced about 20 days apart.

And these two movies are blockbusters—one is Feng Kuzi, one is Fang Long, both are amazing figures, which makes it hard for other movies to pick dates.

Releasing on the same day as them, they're afraid of being crushed; squeezing in between them, they're afraid of being attacked from both sides—it's really damn annoying.

The last time these people played this way was two years ago with "Sacrifice" and "If You Are the One 2"—also spaced about ten to twenty days apart, killing "Big Laugh Adventure."

"The Last Supper," Lu Tailang's movie, chose to go up against "1942" in the same period, facing the difficulty head-on. There was no choice but to pick this date either—the blockbusters behind were just too damn many.

For example, "Big Shanghai"—this one is Bona Film Group, with Fa Ge, Huang Xiaoming, Hong Pangzi, Wang Jin as the lineup; in this era they're all big names.

Chose to release alongside Fang Long's "12 Zodiac Signs."

Originally "Lost in Thailand" was also on the 21st, followed by Christmas and New Year's double holidays—very good dates.

But those are all big-name, big-budget films. "Lost in Thailand" only cost thirty million to produce; compared to those people at this stage, its star power is pretty unremarkable, which is really frustrating.

Still, continuing the old tradition, they squeezed in, wedged right between them, moved up nine days, and placed it on December 12th.

This wasn't decided by Fang Hong, but by Chen Zhixi and the others themselves.

He also didn't say things like "just pick any date, those films are all trash, you're the 'king' of this slot, this film will be a huge hit."

Instead, he followed the historical trajectory, afraid that if he influenced anything, it would cause the film to flop, which wouldn't be good.

On this date, "1942" had been out for about half a month—either "Lost in Thailand" would cut "1942" down, or "1942" would cut "Lost in Thailand" down.

Then on the 20th, "12 Zodiac Signs" and "Big Shanghai"—could they cut "Lost in Thailand" down?

It all depends on their ability!

Anyway, Fang Hong wasn't worried at all; Chen Zhixi, Xu Guangtou and the others were still quite nervous.

They also asked for an extra thirty million in promotional fees for publicity. Fang Hong didn't care, approved it directly. They also wanted ticket subsidies, same as mid-year.

Fang Hong approved that too—a five-yuan ticket subsidy.

Ten yuan was unaffordable. This film had nearly forty million viewers in its previous life; based on that number, five yuan would cost two hundred million.

Ten yuan would cost four hundred million—much scarier than mid-year.

But not every viewer buys tickets online; there are still large numbers who choose offline.

Five yuan just brings some traffic to Tuppiao. com. After this wave, they'll have to start fundraising again.

"Lost in Thailand" is also distributed by Tuppiao. com and China Film Group—if the film is a huge hit, they'll make money too. Including Bilibili, which can earn some advertising fees, which also counts as a kind of promotional channel.

Other ticketing platforms, more or less, also have ticket subsidies—three yuan, five yuan combined, they can still afford it.

These platforms have always had subsidies; some even offer discounts, eighty percent, ninety percent off, all for traffic, for fundraising, to sell the platform to capital and cash out.

In their view, a film with ten million viewers is already a huge hit, among viewers buying discounted offline tickets.

Having fifty percent buy tickets online would already be pretty good.

Back at mid-year, not everyone bought tickets online either; many still bought offline. It's just that the subsidies were too generous, plus the promotion, that pulled everyone online all at once.

If you subsidize too little, people can't even be bothered to download the app!

Recently, Liu Tianxian had been running around doing announcements and events; wherever she went she was the focus, but doing events with others, she felt some isolation from the outside world.

Just because Da Mimi hadn't been idle either—taking all kinds of group photos with Da Baobei, Ni Ni, Qi Wei and other young actresses, showing off their best-friend bonds everywhere, even Sun Li got dragged into the show.

It really looked like a coordinated effort by all the young actresses to isolate Liu Tianxian. Rumors that Liu Tianxian had poor relationships and was hard to get along with began to spread.

This is a common alliance tactic—taking group photos means these people are standing on the same side.

But strangely, Da Mimi and Liu Sisi, the close best friends, seemed to have had a falling out—no group photo together.

Very normal. At mid-year these two competed for the Golden Eagle Goddess; Liu Sisi won it, Da Mimi narrowly lost, naturally unhappy.

Actually, they'd been at odds since the TV dramas "Palace" and "Scarlet Heart."

Besides that, recently Zeng came out stirring things up again. On a Hunan Satellite TV program, she revealed she missed Liu Tianxian very much.

When asked "the end of the world is coming soon, is there anything you want to do?" she said: "If the world ends, I'd grab Liu Tianxian and run away together."

The host asked her: "Don't you need to discuss it with her?"

She retorted: "Why would I need to discuss it?"

That answer sounded so matter-of-fact, as if it should be that way, making people feel there was something ambiguous between the two, sparking controversy again!

"Zeng x Liu—If the end of days comes, please flee with me!"

Such a trending search term popped up on Baidu's search terms, even thoughtfully pairing the two with a same-frame group photo.

Quite a lot of controversy. This made Liu Tianxian lose her mood again, so she came back to rest, not going out to run events and make money.

Fang Hong naturally noticed too. He didn't handle it for now, didn't suppress the news or anything—this thing was bound to erupt eventually, couldn't be suppressed, and there was no way to suppress it.

Moreover, the solution had already been handed to Liu Tianxian—solve it early and put your mind at ease.

Even if Liu Tianxian didn't want to deal with it and wanted to be an ostrich, the interest group behind her led by her mother wouldn't agree.

Liu Tianxian wasn't just one person.

Still, Fang Hong made a call to "the one surnamed Liu"—he had to stay by her side and show his presence.

"Hey, that stinky woman actually dares to hang up on me." Fang Hong heard the phone get hung up, tossed the phone on the table—his authority had been challenged.

"Who are you calling a stinky woman?"

Liu Tianxian appeared by the door, arms crossed, looking at him with unfriendly eyes.

Fang Hong switched to a smiling face: "How are you here?"

"I've been here the whole time—I came with Shuchang for her audition."

Liu Tianxian stormed forward angrily, grabbing his neck from behind: "So this is how you talk about me behind my back."

Shuchang was auditioning for "Let's Get Married." Originally Liu Jiang wanted Gao Yuanyuan to play the female lead; Fang Hong suggested holding an audition to see, and then had Shuchang come audition.

Whether she'd work out depended on herself.

Actually, Shuchang had an advantage—she used to be a CCTV dan role too; although she's young, with some makeup she could still pull it off.

Fang Hong shrank his neck, hissing and taking a sharp breath: "Your hands are so cold."

"Freeze you to death." Liu Tianxian shot back.

It was winter now; she was wearing a fuzzy coat with a silk scarf wrapped around her neck, looking simple and stylish.

She must have just come in from outside—she couldn't really participate in the audition.

"You misunderstood, I wasn't cursing you." Fang Hong argued.

"You think I'd believe that?"

Liu Tianxian let go of him and patted his back.

"I apologize to you," Fang Hong raised his hand to admit fault.

"I forgive you."

Liu Tianxian seemed very generous; she leaned from behind onto his back, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed her face against his: "Come with me to the Golden Horse Awards."

She was nominated again for Golden Horse Awards Zuijia Nüzhujiao for Superbody 1.

That means she has another chance to become Best Actress!

But this time there wasn't as much buzz; the Wangyi didn't seem surprised, mainly because she'd been nominated before, and Liu Tianxian hadn't publicized it.

Added to that, the internet is full of all sorts of nonsense, so this matter seemed dull—it's not like she's actually going to win.

Fang Hong was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, for the role of Young Master Zhao.

Originally, they wanted to give the Best Actor award to Zhang Songwen in that film, but Zhang Songwen wasn't nominated, which was a pity.

This made Zhang Songwen feel deeply guilty; the Principal had clearly been able to nominate himself, yet gave him such a great opportunity, and he still failed to live up to it.

Although nominated, Fang Hong didn't seem enthusiastic about the award; he didn't even plan to go.

"You go by yourself," Fang Hong turned his head, looking at the beautiful face so close to his.

"Are you annoying? Go together—what if you win?" Liu Tianxian said.

"If you win, you bring the award to me," Fang Hong said.

"What if I win?" Liu Tianxian asked again.

"This chance seems extremely slim," Fang Hong said, his voice low, the words unpleasant.

Liu Tianxian bumped her head against his, glaring at him: "Can you say something nice? Have a little faith in me."

Though she knew it was slim, she still held onto hope.

"Fine, fine, I'll go with you," Fang Hong said.

"That's more like it," Liu Tianxian smiled. "If I win and no one claps, you clap for me down there."

"That's acceptable," Fang Hong nodded.

Liu Tianxian was delighted; she nestled her head into his neck, breathing in his masculine scent.

"Hey, can you two at least pay attention to the setting?" Shuchang appeared at the door, seeing the two of them affectionate, her face twisted in distaste.

Fang Hong was annoyed that this person walked in without knocking.

Liu Tianxian lifted her head: "Did you finish your audition?"

"Finished. Let's go get coffee. Are you coming?" Shuchang said.

"Yes," Liu Tianxian kissed Fang Hong's cheek, then stood up.

"This is so nauseating," Shuchang couldn't bear to watch.

Liu Tianxian giggled: "What, are you jealous?"

"I'm jealous of a ghost?"

"Did you pass your audition?"

"."

(End of Chapter)