Chapter 336: Pass the Poison to You

As long as the cheats are curbed, the revenue of Hero Glory can stabilize.

As for plugins, sending a lawyer's notice is enough to curb them; the most used plugins still come from Duowan YY, a legitimate company.

For informal plugins from the public, technical measures like virus reporting or encryption won't work.

Previously, they were left unchecked, leaving vulnerabilities; now that they're no longer ignored, these vulnerabilities can be sealed shut.

It just takes time to carry out the crackdown—it's not something that can be solved just by saying so now.

Now, the competitor's League of Legends map has undergone major changes; it no longer resembles Warcraft, where skill and item bars occupy nearly one-fifth of the screen.

Instead, it's been simplified and streamlined like Hero Glory, but the map details remain crude, with a darker tone, unlike League of Legends' vibrant colors.

The map can't be curbed—such game maps are basically all similar, including Dota.

You accuse others of infringement, but they accuse you of infringing on 3C Chenghai.

Western game design preferences favor dark aesthetics; later, Hero Glory changed its art style under Tencent's influence.

But Tencent currently has no influence on this game; it's being left unchecked because the market space squeezed by Hero Glory keeps shrinking.

Hero Glory now has a daily active user count of 4.5 million, with a peak online of 5 million, ranking first in peak concurrent users.

Globally, over 20 million players play daily, over 60 million play monthly, and during holidays it breaks 7 million!

League of Legends has been squeezed in China to under a million online, and under three million internationally; it will slowly become a failure.

Because this game relies on player matchmaking for battles—if player numbers drop, it creates a vicious cycle.

Tencent hasn't tried to save it; their focus is entirely on mobile games. You think a company that let Tianya Mingyue Dao, a MMO masterpiece, fail has the patience to save League of Legends?

This company makes games based solely on profitability, not on how fun they are; they have little patience for polishing content.

If it doesn't make money, they abandon it without hesitation.

Players are adept at voting with their feet—whichever game is more fun and treats players like humans, they'll play.

Another reason League of Legends is being marginalized is that its hero designs no longer match what they saw in the previous life.

They're now very different—there's no help for it; all the classic heroes have been copied by Hero Glory.

Hero Glory now has many perfectly designed heroes, such as: Blind Monk, Prince, Vayne, Ahri, Riven, Thresh, Jax, Jie, Yasuo, etc.

Recently, they released a new hero, the Saint Gun Ranger, resembling Obama; these heroes were designed by Fang Hong since 2010.

Fang Hong spent four years designing this game with forward-thinking concepts, working tirelessly day after day—it's no easy feat, he has tremendous patience!

Just with these classic hero IPs, they can hold onto their core user base and stabilize quickly.

Of course, profits still can't match Tencent's; Tencent's CrossFire alone earned $957 million—terrifying.

So Tencent still holds the number one market share!

And their mobile games are fierce too—Rhythm Master alone has over 16 million daily active users and earns a million per day, with far greater potential than PC games.

They've already begun to look down on the PC game market share.

Chang'e Technology has no intention of competing with Tencent or any other game company; they steadily consolidate resources and focus them entirely on Hero Glory.

Also on the development engine and Fortnite!

Additionally, they're building an ecosystem: livestreaming, guides, communities, tournaments, etc. —livestreaming is still allowed on all platforms, with total daily viewership exceeding one million.

Those who livestream Hero Glory have all earned their first pot of gold—not all are professionals, just ordinary players who made money from livestreaming.

The largest livestreaming platform now is YY Live; Bilibili's livestreaming isn't as good.

In short, as long as this ecosystem remains, even if the game suffers from plugins and cheats, sustained crackdowns can still stabilize it.

Because Chang'e Technology responds to crises quickly—it's not slacking off, nor does it suffer from big-company disease.

Fortunately, they reclaimed the operating rights from Ubisoft.

Otherwise, responding to the crisis would be passive; you're in a panic while they're calm, and that's troublesome.

The Partner premiered half a month ago; by May 17, its box office had surpassed 660 million RMB.

It was still earning tens of millions daily, but on this day Iron Man 3 premiered, slashing its box office down to just a few million.

But whether this movie is still screening no longer matters—the Yutu money has already been earned; The Partner's cost is clearly low, around 40 million RMB.

The final profit won't be known until it leaves theaters.

That day, Fang Hong arrived at the Set of a Love Story, where filming was underway.

The crew was quiet, working diligently.

The drama has been filming for over a month; it's been slow, with few scene transitions, allowing uninterrupted shooting from morning till night.

There are already many night scenes and indoor shots!

A two-hour movie sometimes requires filming time equivalent to dozens of TV episodes.

Because movies demand high acting standards and quality! The shooting location was a green meadow under bright sunshine; Liu Tianxian wore simple clothes, dressed like an ordinary middle-class woman.

She walked aimlessly, slightly downcast; seeing her boyfriend gone, she suddenly panicked, searching and calling out everywhere.

Then Bai Yu's male lead appeared from afar, running over cheerfully, holding two boxed meals.

"Don't suddenly disappear," the female lead said anxiously.

"Sorry, I went to buy some food," the male lead said, offering her the boxed meals.

Their emotions contrasted sharply—one low, one joyful.

Fang Hong held a bag, unsure what scene they were filming, and sat beside Xue Xiaolu, watching the monitor: "What's this scene about?"

Xue Xiaolu glanced at him and whispered: "The female lead admired a dating blogger who committed suicide; this made her anxious about her own love, causing her to cool down from her passionate romance with the male lead and feel more insecure, while the male lead remains oblivious to her unease."

Fang Hong listened, and a rough image formed in his mind.

In the previous life's version, this scene took place by the sea; the couple were in the passionate early stage of their relationship, having just confirmed their bond, at the peak of sweetness.

The film portrays this emotional moment with great subtlety, capturing the female's cautious, insecure mindset and illustrating the differing views on love between women and men.

The plot's trigger: the female lead had followed a blogger's views on love for three years; their perspectives aligned. The blogger once published "The Death of Love," arguing that romance is like a party—it always ends.

Later, the blogger fell in love and changed her view, writing during her romance: "Though love is like a party, I don't intend to make it a one-night-only party."

The gist was that although the probability of a romance surviving is extremely small, her love would survive — it would be the exception.

Every girl, in the sweetness of a new romance, has this kind of psychological suggestion.

One can imagine this blogger, just like the female lead, had experienced a sweet romance, but in the end this blogger still committed suicide, which shows that having gone through the failure of love, she still couldn't escape that tiny probability of a romance surviving.

This gave the female lead a sense of insecurity, a distrust of her own love.

Later in the plot, however, the male lead used his actions to dispel this mutual sense of insecurity, and they began living together for several years; after the two graduated, they faced new pressures of life.

Before, the male and female lead had been living in an ivory tower, feeling perfectly suited; now they had to face the unsuitability of real life.

"Cut! Take a break!"

Xue Xiaolu held up a megaphone: "Tianxian, think it over carefully — that worried look needs to be more delicate, the emotion has to come from the inside out."

"Got it, Director Xue."

Liu Tianxian spotted Fang Hong and walked over.

Fang Hong handed her the bag in his hand: "Brought this for you."

"What is it?" Liu Tianxian took a clear plastic box out of the bag, opened it, and smiled: "Oh, you're so thoughtful — how did you know I Like dried plums?"

"Searched it on Baidu," Fang Hong said.

"You could've just asked me! Baidu's so unreliable, half the info on there is wrong." Liu Tianxian popped one into her mouth — the taste was sweet and sour.

If this got out, Baidu's stock would probably be knocked down by Liu Tianxian.

"So do you like it?" Fang Hong said.

"Love it!"

Liu Tianxian pressed her lips together, a bright, radiant smile blooming across her face.

Fang Hong watched her smile look so lovely in the sunlight, pulled her close, and planted a loud "smack" of a kiss on her cheek: "Missed you."

"I've got makeup on my face — aren't you afraid of poisoning yourself?!" Liu Tianxian teased.

They both had to wear at least a little makeup when they were on set.

Fang Hong pinched her chin and kissed her on the lips too: "I'll pass the poison to you, and we'll die together."

"So cheesy — people are watching!" Liu Tianxian shot him a look, a hint of blush on her face.

Xue Xiaolu was right beside them checking the footage — utterly shameless, the two of them.

"Hey, I didn't see a thing — you two carry on, pretend I'm not here." Xue Xiaolu got up and walked off, not wanting to disturb the pair.

When a young couple hasn't seen each other for a while, there's bound to be a bit of that — what's that saying? Absence makes the heart grow fonder — like a second honeymoon.

The rest of the crew packed up some of the equipment and went off to rest; the set itself wasn't touched, because this scene still hadn't been filmed — it would probably take several takes.

That was how it had always been — one scene had to be polished at least eight or ten times, worked over very carefully, unlike other productions where, if there were no major issues, it was a wrap.

They were aiming for awards, not the box office.

Bai Yu also found a small stool, sat down, and mulled over the script, trying hard not to look in Liu Tianxian's direction; after spending this stretch of time together, he'd found that Liu Tianxian was truly too beautiful, and her personality was lovely too.

He was afraid of falling for her!

(End of chapter)