The entire internet was filled with anticipation for Jiangnan Group's Warcraft 3, but oo kept the official sales price and release method of Warcraft 3 a secret, leaving countless people anxious.
Some of them were players, but they weren't the most anxious. The most anxious were the pirates. They had already smelled the golden password to make a fortune and were eager to buy a copy of the game, but Huang He was slow to announce where it could be bought. How could they not be anxious?
These pirates even found some bookstores, music and video stores, or large chain sales groups that specialized in selling games through their own channels. As a result, they learned from their internal channels that they had not received any news about stocking Warcraft 3.
This was an incredible thing. Generally speaking, these retail stores would start preparing for stocking about a week in advance. However, they hadn't received any news even two days before the release. Could it be that oo planned to sell everything online this time?
If that were the case, the pirates would be even happier, because they wouldn't even have to bear the cost of buying physical games; they just needed to download it quietly online.
They held on until May 13th, when Popular Software, in their latest issue, exclusively released their interview with Blizzard's president, Alan Adhahn, and the specific sales plan for Warcraft 3 was also announced concurrently.
By May 14th, oo and oo Games also posted the specific sales information for Warcraft 3 on their homepages, and new posters were plastered on the walls of major internet cafes.
When the pirates saw this information for the first time, they were completely stunned.
The original text was approximately as follows:
"To thank all players for their support of oo Games, and because oo Games deeply understands that the vast majority of players love and support genuine games and are eager to play the genuine Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos.
In order to allow all players to enjoy the fun of Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, oo Games, after careful consideration, has made a difficult decision: Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos will be free to all players. All players can play this most advanced single-player game in the world through the oo Games platform.
The oo Games platform will open the pre-download for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos at 12 PM on May 14th. All players can download the oo Games platform for free online, and then download the local game client for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos through the oo Games platform.
However, the game will not be playable until the global official release at 10 PM on May 15th. Once the time comes, players can log in to the game by their personal oo account and then play Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos for free.
We are very excited to tell you that the entire single-player campaign and single-player mode of Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos can not only be played without restrictions when the oo Games platform is launched and logged in.
At the same time, if you are interested in multiplayer battles, you can also play through the oo Games platform. Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and the oo Games platform are deeply integrated and no longer have room restrictions. You can invite your oo friends to battle at will, or you can enter the oo battle hall to randomly match your opponents.
Later, we will synchronously open the map editor and creative map workshop, where you can upload your edited maps and then play freely.
Believe us, you will find rich and unimaginably great fun in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos.
Thank you for all players' support for Jiangnan Group and oo Games. We will see you on May 15th.
The oo Games Warcraft 3 Project Team."
"This... this... is this still a single-player game? How can you not charge money?" The pirates were furious when they saw this news.
The game was completely free and could be downloaded directly online. Then what business were they, the pirate game sellers, doing? It cost them money to copy a game, even the cost of a CD was fifty cents.
Then they sold it in the market for five yuan a piece.
But now the damned oo announced it was free, so why would anyone buy pirated games when there was a convenient genuine version to download!
"This oo is too shameless. They're stealing money from us!" the pirates cursed. They had only ever stolen money from genuine game distributors, not the other way around.
"Exactly, does this oo forget how they started? Without us, how could oo be so glorious now!" Many pirates said indignantly. They had helped oo back then by putting the client directly into system discs or various pirated game packages for one-click installation.
But now, they had turned their backs on them and wouldn't even let them make money. This was raising a thankless wretch!
Well, if our boss Huang knew about these words, he would probably be so angry that he would kick them. It was as if he hadn't paid them back then.
In any case, all the dozens of pirate game sellers across the country who had been rubbing their hands together sighed and announced the abandonment of their plan to pirate Warcraft 3.
It was good for those who simply gave up, but the unluckiest were some individual pirates who had specifically bought new machines and a large number of discs, and even hired a cracking team, intending to make a big profit this time. As a result, they lost everything and quit directly.
In short, for a long time afterward, the piracy circles were filled with curses against oo, endlessly.
Of course, these people could only curse and didn't even dare to make a move. As soon as they made a move, they would be wiped out.
Compared to the pirates, the players were in a completely different situation.
All the players were shocked when they saw the news, and then overjoyed.
In an instant, all the posts on various forums that were making sarcastic remarks about oo Games were pushed to the top.
But don't misunderstand, these posts were pushed to the top not to criticize oo, but to be criticized.
"OP is an idiot, confirmed!"
"Is the OP's face swollen? If not, I'll kick it again!"
"Count me in!"
"+1"
"People like OP are typical examples of judging a gentleman by a villain's heart. oo has proven with facts who the real king is!"
"I hereby declare that from today onwards, oo Games is my dad. Anyone who dares to curse my dad, I'll f*** him."
"The guy above, count me in!"
"You guys go, I'll watch the show!"
"I predicted long ago that oo wouldn't set the price too high, after all, companies like them want to sell in volume rather than price. But I never expected that oo would make it completely free, this is simply incredible. oo is the most generous game company I've ever seen, and it deserves to get rich!"
"Mengu Cavalry has visited! I told you long ago that a company with our Great Mengmeng wouldn't be a money-grubbing company. How could our Mengmeng, who is so cute and beautiful, rip you off?"
"The guy above, who is Mengmeng? I haven't heard of her!"
"Mengmeng is oo Games' CEO, Leng Zhimeng. I heard she's a 19-year-old high school student!"
"A 19-year-old high school student CEO? Is it true? Any pictures?"
"[Image.jpg]"
"Damn, she's so pretty and cute? Is such a beautiful girl really the CEO of the company? Is she a fake to deceive people?"
"Look at the picture, do you see the mark of Focus Interview? This is a screenshot directly from the Focus Interview program. Do you think it's real or fake?"
"Ah, I'm dead. I want to join Mengu Cavalry too. Where is the organization?"
"We are in the Mengu Cavalry section of the oo forum. You can join us by registering!"
...
This was roughly the reality of players' comments online, and it could reflect their mood.
If there was a website specifically for company ratings, similar to Douban, oo's original score would be around 6.9 points, but now it had soared to about 8.5 points, and was about to move towards the epic 9-point company.
Of course, there were other voices on the internet, such as doubts about how oo made money by doing this.
They heard that oo spent as much as $2 million to acquire the Chinese distribution rights for Warcraft 3, and then gave it away for free to players. So, was this $2 million purely a loss?
Not only that, but oo even bound Warcraft 3 to the oo Games platform, which was even more incredible.
After the free policy was announced, it was obvious that an unimaginable number of players would flock to Warcraft 3. These players would bring massive traffic, and oo's network and server load would almost double. This would require tens of millions of servers at least to meet the demand.
In addition, the broadband costs would probably increase by several million each month.
In other words, as soon as the free policy was announced, oo not only wouldn't earn a single cent, but would also have to spend tens of millions in server costs upfront, and several million in bandwidth costs every month. What was oo trying to achieve by doing this?
This made many entrepreneurs very puzzled.
"Huang He is after me!" Among so many people who couldn't figure it out, the first one to understand was probably our Brother Ma.
Brother Ma clearly understood that Huang He's goal was none other than himself, his QQ, and his QQ Lianzhong Games.
Huang He, this scoundrel, he coveted his body.
The reason why Huang He made Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos completely free, but also bound it to the oo Games platform, was to further seize users from QQ Lianzhong Games.
Then, further down the line, QQ users would also be taken away, and Tengda would once again experience the miserable situation it had months ago with oo's Message Bottle and oo Voice.
He would lose a large chunk of users again.
What was even more depressing was that Brother Ma had no solution for this, because he had no money.