Chapter 24: Welcome, Summoner!

Not over yet; to become the ultimate winner in the user growth battle, YY, having gone all-in, even deployed its trump card—adopting Penguin's ruthless, precision pop-up push tactics.

All game users who download and log into the YY platform will periodically receive push notifications for JM's live streams impacting the national server rankings.

These meticulously calculated pop-ups appear not only when launching the game but also during the golden three minutes after a match ends, precisely capturing the player's window of interest.

This traffic war extends far beyond the platform itself.

On the external battlefield, YY's operations team demonstrated textbook opportunistic marketing: whenever Penguin announced major updates such as the League of Legends rank system reform or preparations for the LPL professional league, dozens of carefully crafted promotional articles would simultaneously dominate the comment section hot lists.

These remarkably consistent soft articles emphasized the sense of participation in "witnessing the national server summit and winning ten thousand yuan in prizes" while promising "mysterious grand gifts shared by live stream viewers."

The goal was singular: during Penguin's expansion of the League of Legends game sector and its frantic recruitment of new players, cleverly leverage the traffic dividends from Penguin's official news to complete user conversion.

Data confirmed the strategy's success: within 72 hours of Penguin announcing the ladder score reform, coupled with the push from YY's live streams promoting JM's national server summit score-chasing event, new registered users surged by 237%, with the League of Legends sector accounting for 81% of the traffic.

JM's fame within the League of Legends sector brought them far too much.

While Penguin promoted the League of Legends rank reform, JM itself was a renowned top-tier ladder player; aided by the groundwork laid by numerous tutorial videos beforehand, countless new players would follow the strategy videos to YY live streams.

Even on the official website column regarding the LPL league formation, YY managed to hitch a ride.

Nothing else; the NXG team founded by JM secured a spot in the LPL preseason early with an impressive four consecutive victories.

Once the roster was released, many players who initially believed professional matches were more professional suddenly discovered with surprise that the person in charge of the NXG team was actually JM.

The Penguin Esports official website, originally built for match reporting, unexpectedly became a traffic diversion entry point for their YY—tens of thousands of players jumped from the "Team Owner" link on the team introduction page to YY live streams.

The promotion had just begun; watching the platform's registered user count skyrocket, the person in charge sighed with unusual emotion.

"Our decision to increase investment and renew the contract with JM, and to cooperate with him, was indeed the most correct choice."

"Haha, let's just see how much of the cake we can eat in this war of new user acquisition with this massive investment."

……

"Welcome to League of Legends!"

In the "Zhulang" internet cafe on Gaoke West Road, Magic City.

The rising and falling system notification tones wove a unique digital symphony.

League of Legends!

After becoming an official WCG competition item in 2012, Penguin utilized its social circle based on QQ to launch terrifying promotional campaigns; furthermore, the coverage of the City Hero Tournament expanded from 88 cities to 108 cities, and the large number of events held attracted countless people into the Summoner's Rift.

A youth with the ID "Ocean" was one of them.

On the seventeenth time being killed by a turret, a hoarse roar from a teammate came through his headphones: "Garen, are you the founder of the 'Turret Feeder' style? I told you to tank the turret, not to feed it!"

The youth stared at the gray-and-white screen, his fingers trembling above the F key.

MOBA games are so hard!

His hand kept shaking; he couldn't hear what his teammates were saying clearly, and he couldn't even press Flash.

Ocean had not played MOBA games before; he had mostly encountered MMORPGs like Legend, Tianlong, and Murky.

However, in March of this year, he saw a huge poster for the City Hero Tournament at Wanda Plaza in Wujiaochang; inexplicably, he bought a ticket, entered the venue, and watched a League of Legends match. Since then, scenes from that match would occasionally flash through his mind.

On the LED screen, the blue side's Twisted Fate flew toward the Baron pit; the moment the golden card froze the opponent, Baron Nashor fell, and the disadvantaged blue side completed a comeback thanks to Twisted Fate's ultimate teleportation; the crowd below, people his own age, cheered and shouted, the sound waves almost tearing apart the arena's sky.

One late night a few months later, inexplicably, he downloaded the 4.2 GB client for LOL.

It was from that moment on that he gradually developed an interest in this kind of multiplayer real-time competitive MOBA game.

"Brother, I feel you aren't very suited for playing Garen; I recommend checking out JM's Xinshou Sect tutorial videos and finding a role that suits you first."

In the game, the support player did not join the queue of teammates furiously berating their own top laner; instead, he kindly advised.

(Ocean: Tutorial videos?)

(Zyra: Open YY, and it will automatically pop up a link to JM's live stream for you.)

JM tutorials?... I think I closed a pop-up when I opened YY earlier.

But tutorial videos?

Something like game guides? But doesn't LOL have a tutorial for new players?

He still remembered when he first played this game; the system defaulted to selecting a ranged shooter hero for him, called Ashe the Freljordian. He played dozens of bot matches with this ranged hero, feeling he had basically familiarized himself with the general Hero Gameplay and some opposing hero skills, only then clicking on matchmaking.

However, because he didn't really like this ranged hero that relied solely on basic attacks, he switched to the Demacian Power warrior, who seemed to have richer skills, not wanting to be scolded often in the game.

"Play with your brain, and ranking up is easy!"

"Hello everyone, this is JM from New Player New World—A Ming's Little Class!"

"First, allow me to represent the vast number of Summoners of Runeterra to welcome new players, hoping you will come to love this game through my video explanations."

"..."

The corners of Ocean's mouth turned up; compared to those preachy guide videos, he quite liked this video UP host's way of speaking.

"First, regarding recommended heroes for new players, A Ming here has only three recommendations for friends just getting in touch with this game: Ashe, Ryze, and Garen—the three default beginner heroes the system provides."

"Why? Some friends might ask, aren't there many permanently free heroes for new players? Here A Ming wants to tell everyone: actually, these three system-recommended beginner heroes are not only for everyone to familiarize themselves with the game mechanics but, more importantly, to let everyone experience different playstyles."

"Ranged Mage, Ranged Physical Shooter, Melee Warrior—three different branches covering the basic playstyles of LOL heroes; you must first find the hero playstyle you like or are even good at."

The hero playstyle you like or are even good at?

Ocean felt this made sense; when he first got in touch with League of Legends, he played over a dozen bot matches using that Ashe, and only switched to the Demacian Power because he felt he didn't like it.

But judging by his performance in matchmaking, this melee warrior also seemed unsuitable for him.

"How about trying a ranged mage?"

With an idea forming in his mind, the youth did not rush; instead, he continued to patiently watch this UP host's tutorial video and, following the host's prompt, directly jumped to the third segment explaining ranged mage heroes.

"Compared to ranged physical shooters and melee warriors, mage heroes have slightly higher operational difficulty; they are considered an existence in the new player advancement stage. At this point, you neither have the high attack power of ranged physical shooters nor the tough physique of melee warriors, and your damage output methods are skills with certain cooldowns."

In the video, Jiang Ming calmly explained the pros and cons of mages; just as with the shooters and warriors before, he would break down these traits for new players and explain them to them, so they could find the hero style they liked.