Reborn multinational giant

As early as a few years ago, Fang Zhe and Huizhong tried to have many contacts with Riot, hoping to win the Chinese agency of League of Legends.

Even a year ago, Fang Zhe sent a representative to the United States, hoping to acquire all the shares of the leading company that develops League of Legends for hundreds of millions of dollars.

It is a pity that Huizhong representatives have closed their doors without exception, and the biggest obstacle is that they won the agency of League of Legends in China from 2008, and later invested in Riot until the final purchase of all shares in Riot. Tencent!

The rise of Huizhong WeChat has made Tencent's transformation in the mobile Internet era a major setback. Therefore, Tencent has to seek deeper and longer-term development in the inherent PC field.

One of them is to make greater efforts in the field of terminal games. Therefore, since the domestic public beta of League of Legends in July this year, Tencent has invested heavily in promotion, video advertising, novel website advertising, and even Internet cafes. , Tencent can be said to suppress the game of League of Legends at any cost.

The results are also obvious. League of Legends has only been in public beta for more than two months, and the number of registered users in China has exceeded 10 million, and the number of daily active users has exceeded 5 million, directly squeezing into the top 5 existing domestic mobile games!

As a rebirth, Fang Zhe knows that the terrifying and potential of the League of Legends game has not yet fully exploded. If Huizhong, who is acting as Dota 2 at this time, does not fight back as soon as possible, then wait for League of Legends to completely stand in the domestic game player group. Keep your feet steady, Dota 2 can only be the second child in this field!

For two consecutive days, Fang Zhe held a number of transoceanic video conferences with senior officials of the game department such as Huang Zheng, who are far away in China, to learn more about Dota2 and Huang Zheng's details on the fight for Dota2 International Invitational held in China. plan.

Two days later, Fang Zhe, who temporarily changed his plan for returning home, appeared at Valve's headquarters in Seattle.

This is Fang Zhe’s second visit to Valve’s headquarters. Last time, more than two years ago, Fang Zhe sought to introduce Steam China. At that time, Huizhong made a statement in the global game industry, but in the global Internet industry, Can't rank.

Two years later, Huizhong has become the world's most highly valued unlisted Internet company, and has been rated as the world's most potential Internet startup by many well-known media such as the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Time magazine.

Now and then, Fang Zhe's identity and status have also risen!

Therefore, when Fang Zhe appeared at Valve's headquarters, including Valve's chairman G Fat and the company's many shareholders and executives, they all welcomed the company at the door.

The prosperous development of Steam China represented by Huizhong has made the Steam platform the world’s largest and most users electronic game platform. Among them, Steam China alone has more than 30 million registered users, contributing more than half of Valve’s revenue and profit!

Although Steam China has been open for nearly two years, it still maintains an annual growth rate of more than 30% in terms of the number of registered users and revenue, which far exceeds the development speed of Steam in non-China regions and the global game industry. The average speed of development.

China's huge game market potential is nothing short of amazing!

"Mr. Fang Zhe, I am glad to meet you!" G Fat shook hands with Fang Zhe in a warm welcome with a smile familiar to countless game players.

After the greeting, Fatty G dismissed most of the employees who greeted him, led Fang Zhe and a few executives to the reception room, and kept introducing Valve and Steam's recent global developments and plans along the way.

Compared to G fat and cold attitude when Zhe visited two years ago, G fat at this time is no different from a warm and hospitable fat man.

"Now, am I counted as the father of the sponsor of V company?" Fang Zhe thought for a while.

In the reception room, G Fat simply introduced to Fang Zhe two people around him, a blond, blue-eyed, mature professional charming middle-aged lady, who is now the head of Steam in non-China regions, and another unshaven, wearing Glasses, a middle-aged man whose weight doesn't seem to be a bit fatter than G, is the producer of Dota 2.

After the brief introduction, G Fat directly opened up the topic:

"Mr. Fang Zhe, I know that you specifically changed the itinerary to come to our Valve, but I have already explained our reasons to Huang Zheng. Dota2 will open its public beta in February next year, for the overall global operation of this game. Considering that we have to put the Ti2 venue in Seattle.

Of course, we do not care less about the Chinese market, but you should know that Dota2 is in a unified global public beta this time. Seattle's popularity and influence in North America and Europe is better than any other city in China.

What do you think of Ti3 being held in China in the next year?"

G Fat’s answer is not what Fang Zhe expected. In fact, this is also the habitual thinking of European and American game companies like Valve. Although they value the Chinese market, they also value the major European and American markets.

In order to get Valve and Fatty to agree to hold Ti2 in China, Fang Zhe has already come up with a winning plan in the past two days of remote meetings with Huang Zheng and others, and attack from the opposite side!

Before, whether it was Huang Zheng fighting for the right to host Ti2 with Valve, or Huang Zheng reporting to Fang Zhe, they all talked about the various benefits of Ti2 held in China, but it is clear that Valve and G Fat do not eat this. In their minds, no matter how well Dota2 operates in China, it is not as important as the European and American markets.

Therefore, Fang Zhe did not directly respond to G Fat, but looked at the two executives beside him and asked:

"Ms. Laura, you are responsible for the global operations of Steam, and you must know the current number of users of Steam China."

"More than 30 million, to be precise, as of last quarter, it was more than 32 million!" Laura said with certainty.

Fang Zhe nodded, then looked at the middle-aged man sitting next to her, and asked, "Mr. Michael, you are the producer of Dota2. I think you should know who is the most powerful competitor of Dota2 in the global market. ?"

Hearing Fang Zhe's question, Michael rubbed the corner of his mouth with his hand, looked at the boss G Fat, and said:

"The League of Legends of Riot!"

"Yes! That's it!" Fang Zhe snapped his fingers affirmatively, his eyes swept across the G Fat three, and said:

"On the 7th of this month, that is, less than 12 days ago, Tencent, the agent of League of Legends in China, announced that the number of registered users of this game in China exceeded 10 million. This time, it will be July 28. The public beta of the number is only more than two months!"

"10 million?" Before G Fat had spoken, Michael, the producer of Dota2, yelled in surprise. No wonder he was so gaffe. You must know that with his years of experience in the game industry, the number of users can exceed 10 million. Counting, any one, is a classic game in the famous world.

And now, the League of Legends that he has always been hostile to, the number of registered users in China alone has exceeded 10 million in just two months. If it were not for the person who told him the news, he was more fat than his boss G Fang Zhe, the founder of Huizhong, I am afraid he must think that this is a gimmick and hype deliberately released by Fist!

"Horrible, the League of Legends is terrible!" Michael's heart was full of waves.