Chapter 1 There are Many Modifications to the Latter Half of the Previous Chapter, Please Refresh

Pei Qian replied, "It's simple, because there can only be one dominant MOBA game in this world. It's a 'winner-take-all' competition."

"For me, it's not a question of whether I dare, but that there's no other choice. It's not that I dare to burn money, but that I have to burn money. If I can't stick with it, all the money I burned before will be wasted."

"My question is, what's the upper limit for the amount of money the Dayak Corporation is willing to burn on IOI?"

Eric took a sip of tea and said after a moment of consideration, "I don't have a very precise answer to that question, and I can't guarantee the accuracy of any answer I might give."

"The senior executives of our company have different opinions on similar issues. No one knows what the outcome will be until after a meeting."

"Also, there is a department in our company that specializes in data analysis to provide a basis for the decisions of senior management. The data from this department is also very important."

"If I had to guess, that number would fluctuate depending on the situation. If we invested a lot of resources but saw no results and slow market share growth, then giving up wouldn't be entirely impossible."

"If I had to estimate a number... I'd guess 100 million dollars."

"Our company only spent about 250 million dollars to acquire Finger Company, which has already brought some pressure. It's impossible to keep burning money indefinitely, especially when there's no clear prospect of success."

"My second question is the same as yours, President Pei: What is the upper limit for the amount of money that Tenda Group is willing to burn on GOG?"

Pei Qian smiled. "The upper limit is all the funds that Tenda can mobilize."

"Third question, 100 million dollars is obviously not the limit of Dayak Corporation's capabilities, so... do you think there is a possibility that Dayak Corporation will burn more than 100 million dollars?"

Eric considered for a moment. "In my personal judgment, this possibility certainly exists, but it's not very high."

"Everyone knows that our company has always been relatively focused on short-term and immediate interests. This has nothing to do with right or wrong, it's simply our company's way of thinking."

Hearing this, Lin Wan nodded slightly subconsciously.

The reason why Dayak Group is so infamous in the gaming circle is because they have brought the coldness of capital to the extreme.

They acquire promising game companies and quickly overdraw and drain their full potential, destroying many excellent game companies.

This shows that Dayak Group is indeed a capital group that only values immediate interests and doesn't particularly care about long-term interests. So, if Finger Company's market share continues to decline and it keeps burning money like a bottomless pit without any results, giving up and stopping the losses is indeed a very likely option for Dayak Group.

Eric said, "My last question is: President Pei, you said that you would use all the funds to market GOG, but the problem is that, given Tenda's current size, doing so will inevitably put a lot of pressure on the capital chain. Once there is any uncertainty, it may cause huge losses and drag down the entire group."

"President Pei, where does your courage come from?"

Pei Qian was silent for a moment, then sighed softly. "I've always been lucky."

This seemed like a very empty answer, but Eric didn't seem dissatisfied. Instead, he fell into thought.

A moment later, he smiled and raised his glass. "President Pei, I think we've both gotten the information we wanted. I'll drink to that."

Pei Qian also raised his glass and smiled. "Mr. Eric, I hope we have the chance to meet again."

...

After the dinner, at the entrance of Yuanda Tiandi.

The Tenda people watched Eric leave.

Pei Qian couldn't quite figure out what information Eric would gather from his words. He was only sure of one thing: that the topic of conversation had always been focused on "burning money."

As long as Eric could influence the senior management of Dayak Group to continue burning money happily after he returned, that would be enough. Nothing else mattered.

Lin Wan tentatively asked, "President Pei, does Shang Yang Games need to cooperate with anything?"

Pei Qian shook his head. "No. Everyone's worked hard all day, go back and rest."

Xiao Sun was already waiting in the car. Pei Qian had drunk some wine at the dinner table and was naturally a little sleepy, so after saying goodbye to everyone, he got into the car and went back to rest.

After watching President Pei leave, Lin Wan, Zhang Yuan, and Min Jingchao gathered together to discuss what had happened at the dinner table.

Zhang Yuan looked puzzled. "What exactly do President Pei and Eric's three questions mean?"

"The three questions they asked don't seem to be very important;"

"When answering, they were both half-truths and half-lies, mixed with reality and fiction;"

"But both of them seemed very satisfied with the answers, this..."

"It's a bit like playing charades, I can't figure it out."

Zhang Yuan was really confused.

Min Jingchao nodded in agreement. "Yes, the two of them seemed to say a lot, but it was like they didn't say anything at all."

"Some information seems important, but in fact, with the information-gathering capabilities of both sides, this information should be obtainable sooner or later."

"Moreover, everyone at the dinner table was actually in a chain of suspicion. Even if Eric said something true, we wouldn't believe it was true, and would instead think in the opposite direction..."

"Anyway, I don't understand at all."

Lin Wan also shook her head. "I'm not sure either, but I guess that the focus of both sides' questions should also hide some information, but we can't understand it, and there's no way to interpret it."

"Sure enough, Eric is still not a simple person. Those who can rise to senior management positions in multinational corporations are not ordinary people."

"The reason why we were able to win against him before was ultimately because of President Pei. Our level is still too low."

"In short, let's just trust President Pei. I think Dayak Group will definitely not give up easily."

...

On the plane, Eric lowered the window shade and closed his eyes to rest.

During the long flight, he had plenty of time to slowly organize the information he had collected in his mind and carefully extract useful information from those three questions.

At the dinner table, he and President Pei each asked three questions and answered three questions.

Eric knew very well that they were both old foxes, and it was impossible to take each other's words completely at face value.

But Eric also knew very well that the purpose of both he and President Pei was to dig out some useful information for themselves from the other's true and false answers.

"The three questions that President Pei asked me were about the new person in charge of IOI's national server, the upper limit of Dayak's money burning, and the possibility of breaking that upper limit."

"Obviously, he's somewhat curious about his new opponent, but not very concerned. What he cares more about is how much money Dayak Group will actually burn."

"This shows that... 'burning money' is the crux of this commercial war."

"And the three questions I asked were actually all related to Tenda's marketing strategy. Although President Pei's answers were half-truths and half-lies, if you analyze them carefully..."

Eric thought seriously.

In the past few months, he had done a lot of research. Apart from some details at the implementation level, he basically understood GOG's operating methods.

It's nothing more than desperately burning money!

Originally, Eric thought that Tenda was just willing to spend money on marketing, but later he discovered that making less money was also a disguised way of burning money.

GOG's heroes are all free, the skins are all dirt-cheap, and the first skin designed by players is directly discounted by 90%... After all these discounts, it's practically giving them away for free.

And one of the important reasons why IOI has always been unable to beat GOG is in the pricing of heroes and skins.

Price wars may be low-level, but they are indeed effective.

Eric knew this, but he couldn't change it, because it would be difficult for him to convince the senior executives of Dayak and Finger Company to change the skin prices to the same dirt-cheap prices as GOG. The profits involved were simply too great.

So, the question that Eric wanted to ask the most was, why is Tenda so daring to burn money?

You must know that Tenda is not a listed company, and there is no option of burning the money of investors and shareholders. What they are burning is the company's money. Or, to be more precise, what they are burning is President Pei's money.

That's why Eric was confused. Doesn't President Pei feel bad about burning so much money?

And President Pei's answers to the three questions can actually be summarized into one point.

Because MOBA games are winner-take-all, so they must keep burning money, otherwise, all previous efforts will be wasted;

He would use all the funds that Tenda can mobilize to promote GOG;

As for the risk of a broken capital chain, President Pei's answer was simply to "believe in his luck."

This is a gambler's mentality!

Eric rubbed his temples.

"Judging from the existing information, President Pei's actual behavior is consistent with what he said. It's not an exaggeration to say that he's a gambler."

"If this information is true, then President Pei may have two purposes in saying these things:"

"The first possibility is to scare Dayak Corporation away, telling Dayak Corporation that this war is a bottomless pit. If you don't dare to follow to the end, then please give up as soon as possible."

"It's like going all-in at the poker table, putting all your chips in the middle to create huge psychological pressure on the other side, betting that the other side won't dare to call, and taking all the chips on the table now."

"The second possibility is as a form of aggressive tactic, to make Dayak Corporation follow suit and burn money, including lowering the price of skins. In this way, both sides will fall into a dangerous close-quarters battle, but the entire MOBA game community will expand further and faster."

"After the pie gets bigger, the winner-take-all can get even greater benefits."

"But the latter is obviously too risky and doesn't seem like a rational behavior."

"What if this is fake information deliberately released by President Pei?"

"That would mean that President Pei is not a gambler, but is bluffing, so it still has the effect of 'intimidation'. In short, he still wants to scare Dayak Corporation away."

"Sure enough, it's still too difficult to guess President Pei's psychology."

"However, I can also bypass this issue and start from realistic conditions."

"President Pei's answers to these three questions actually inadvertently verified one of my guesses, which is..."

"Although Tenda burns money fiercely, its cash flow is not particularly healthy, or rather, Tenda Group is actually dancing on the edge of a knife."

Eric had already analyzed it. He believed that, based on Tenda's investment and returns, it was very likely that it had always been maintaining a small profit or even a small loss. In other words, President Pei seemed to overemphasize the speed of capital turnover, resulting in the company's anti-risk capability not being very strong.

Tenda is indeed willing to spend money, but this kind of spending is also limited.

Once the speed of spending exceeds Tenda's profitability, then Tenda's capital chain will become very dangerous.

And when Eric asked about the capital chain problem, President Pei's answer was "relying on luck."

Eric already had an answer: "That is to say, I don't need to be entangled in what President Pei's mentality is. Regardless of whether he is a gambler or not, Tenda Group's capital chain is actually in a relatively tight state."

"In other words, Dayak Group's money burning will have a 'limit value'. This limit value is the profitability of all Tenda Group's industries combined, and the upper limit of the funds that Tenda Group can obtain through various means."

"Before exceeding this limit value, no matter how much money you burn, it's useless, and GOG's first-mover advantage cannot be shaken; but once you exceed this limit value, it's possible to drag down the entire Tenda Group!"

Eric couldn't help but smile.

When he answered President Pei's question before, he said a number: 100 million dollars. He said that this was his estimate of the upper limit of the amount of money that Dayak Group could afford to burn.

If burning money doesn't achieve obvious results, then Dayak Group will burn at most this much money.

This statement is actually half-true and half-false, and it's difficult to distinguish. But regardless of whether President Pei believes it or not, this will establish an anchor point in President Pei's mind and have a certain suggestive effect.

Moreover, Eric's assumption is that Dayak Group is not particularly clear about Tenda Group's situation, and will give in after burning money to its psychological bottom line.

But the problem is, what if Eric shares this information with the senior management of Dayak Group?

Kreatian will adopt a different operating strategy from Eric, and may make certain modifications to the IOI game itself, and may jointly operate with local Chinese game companies.

But Eric judged that the effect of Kreatian's series of measures would not be much better than his own.

When Kreatian also fails, Eric can take the opportunity to report this information to the senior management of Dayak Group, and is very likely to get a chance to make a comeback.

At that time, Dayak Group will either give up the money-burning war with Tenda Group, or listen to Eric's advice and keep burning until Tenda's limit!

If it's the former, then naturally there's nothing to say; but if it's the latter, then Eric will have a chance to turn things around!