1novels Chapter 478 Surrounded by Enemies on All Sides
Chapter 478 Surrounded by Enemies on All Sides
The day after the announcement was issued, Tencent's response came earlier and was more forceful than expected.
At 9:00 AM, the network in the TUTU office building suddenly experienced an abnormal fluctuation that lasted for about five minutes.
It wasn't a complete internet outage, but accessing all Tencent websites and services was incredibly slow, like crawling.
The technical department checked the router and found that the problem wasn't with TUTU, but rather that the other party had implemented rate limiting at the interface layer.
The network returned to normal five minutes later, but this fluctuation was enough to illustrate the attitude.
At 10:00 AM, Tencent released a more strongly worded public statement, which was also sent to all mainstream gaming media outlets.
The statement consists of only three paragraphs. The first paragraph states that Tencent has always adhered to the principle of open cooperation and worked together with industry partners for common development.
The second paragraph states that recently, a partner unilaterally released false information, which damaged the foundation of cooperation between the two parties.
The third paragraph states that Tencent will "reassess its cooperation with relevant parties" and reserves the right to "take necessary technical measures".
None of the three passages are long, but each one is laced with deadly force.
When Lu Ran finished reading the statement in his office, Chen Mo had already pushed the door open and entered.
He was holding a phone with a screenshot of the comments section below Tencent's statement on the screen.
The comments section is completely different from TUTU's. Most of the comments are criticizing Tencent, with the harshest one being "What else can you do besides strangle us?" It has already received nearly 100,000 likes.
"We've gained the upper hand in this public opinion battle," Chen Mo said, placing his phone on the table. "But the technical pressure is just beginning. You guessed it, they've started tampering with the login interface. This morning, the testing team reported that the response time for logging into League of Legends via WeChat has increased from an average of 0.3 seconds to about two seconds, and in some areas it's even exceeded three seconds. It's not that you can't log in at all, but it's just frustrating."
"Then let them suffer," Lu Ran said. "Has the login time monitoring function been launched on Zhao Yiming's end?"
"We stayed up all night to launch it. The test version ran all morning, and we've already recorded several thousand data entries. Once we have enough samples, we can compile them into a report and send it out."
"Okay. Tell He Bin to speed up the digital sovereignty plan as well. What about the online trolls?"
"It's already been rolled out. We started simultaneously on Weibo, Baidu Tieba, TUTU Games, and even Zhihu this morning. The topics are focused on three areas—a review of the old WeChat user data leak case, the history of cooperation between Tencent and Sakura Games, and WeChat's unfair terms that force users to log in to games. The popularity is currently rising, and several topics have already entered the trending lists on their respective platforms."
Lu Ran nodded after listening.
Just as he was about to say something more, his phone rang.
It was Zhou Mingzhe calling.
"Mr. Lu, something's happened. Tencent not only blocked the login interface, but also contacted Shanda and NetEase."
Lu Ran tightened his grip on the phone: "Be more specific."
"I just received news that Shanda sent an internal email this morning to the operations teams of all its products, requiring them to cease all cooperation with TUTU Technology immediately, including but not limited to joint activities, channel promotion, and user referral. Although NetEase did not send an internal email, their senior management also clearly instructed at their morning meeting this morning to assess the risk factor of all cooperation projects with TUTU and recommended that all departments suspend new cooperation negotiations."
Lu Ran sat up straight in his office chair: "Are the emails and morning meeting contents reliable?"
"Reliable. The information came from a mid-level friend at Shanda, and I've already received a screenshot of the email on my phone. As for NetEase, I discussed it with one of their regional managers in South China during a meal, so it can't be fake."
After hanging up the phone, Lu Ran leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
He had previously predicted that Tencent would join forces with other companies to launch a crackdown, but he did not expect the move to be so swift, and that the first round would involve Shanda and NetEase, two of the largest and most established companies.
Chen Mo noticed his expression was off: "What's wrong?"
"Tencent has contacted Shanda and NetEase. Shanda sent an internal email demanding a complete halt to its cooperation with TUTU, and NetEase has also instructed all departments to suspend new cooperation negotiations."
Chen Mo's expression didn't change much, but the corners of his mouth twitched downwards slightly: "They acted quickly enough. Shanda and NetEase already have long-standing capital and business ties with Tencent, so they won't refuse Tencent's request. Moreover, TUTU's rise over the past year has indeed put pressure on both companies. By helping Tencent to encircle and suppress us, they are also helping themselves reduce a potential competitor."
"Weibo's experience serves as a cautionary tale," Lu Ran said. "They saw that Weibo had been squeezed to the point of near death by us, and they don't want to become the next one."
"Yes. So when Tencent pulls them into the game, they won't hesitate."
Lu Ran quickly went through Shanda and NetEase's product lines in his mind.
Shanda's strengths lie in MMORPGs and casual social games, while NetEase's strengths lie in self-developed martial arts and card games. Both companies have a significant overlap with TUTU's existing product categories.
However, the problem is not just about overlapping product categories, but also about channels and traffic entry points.
Shanda has a user base of several established PC games, while NetEase has a large and loyal player base that has been operating for a long time.
If these two companies really work together with Tencent to completely block the three products "League of Legends", "Minecraft" and "CrossFire" from their channels, then TUTU's user reach efficiency in the Chinese market will drop significantly.
"Brother Zhou," Lu Ran dialed Zhou Mingzhe's number again, "Contact Wang Huabing now. Don't stop expanding the channels at the Guangzhou branch, but don't take any initiative to contact Shanda for the time being. If Shanda comes to us to talk about cooperation first, stall until the situation becomes clearer. Do the same in Shanghai. Suspend all cooperation projects related to NetEase for now. Don't refuse or take the initiative. Keep a low profile."
Zhou Mingzhe said "I understand" and then hung up the phone.
Lu Ran put his phone back on the table, turned to look at Chen Mo: "Shanda and NetEase are Tencent's next move. They're currently in a wait-and-see mode, just cooperating with Tencent in a show of force, and haven't really made a move yet. But if Tencent puts further pressure on them, they will definitely follow suit."
Chen Mo nodded: "Then we need to secure all the channels we can before they officially take action. We've already negotiated with the local channels in Shanghai several times, so we can speed up the signing process. We can also negotiate another round of rebates with the internet cafe alliance in Shanghai to lock in their willingness to cooperate."
"That's settled." Lu Ran picked up his phone and started sending messages. He first sent a message to the head of the operations department, asking him to immediately sort out all the channel cooperation projects that were in progress, mark which ones involved Shanda and NetEase, and which ones were independent channels, and prioritize them according to the risk level into three categories.
Then he sent another message to Zhao Yiming, asking him to change the report generation cycle for login time monitoring from once a day to once every six hours, and to accumulate data as quickly as possible.
After sending the message, he sat down again, picked up his cup, and took a sip of water.
The water had cooled down, and when I drank it, it made my stomach feel cold, but my mind actually became clearer.
He recalled what Chen Mo had just said—"The lessons learned from Weibo are right there in front of us."
Indeed, Weibo was squeezed by TUTU from both the user and content levels, which led to its current predicament.
The people at Shanda and NetEase saw this result, and they don't want to follow the same path.
So as soon as Tencent made a statement, they responded immediately, even if it was just a superficial response.
But Lu Ran knew in his heart that Shanda and NetEase would not cooperate very well.
These two companies are large in size, have multiple layers, and have complex internal interest structures.
An email and a morning meeting instruction may work for a while, but not for long.
As long as TUTU doesn't actively provoke them, they will most likely return to a wait-and-see state after the initial cooperation and won't really put all their resources into a head-on fight with TUTU.
What we really need to worry about is who Tencent will bring into the game next.
Lu Ran picked up his phone and sent Chen Mo a message: "Make a list of all the Chinese game companies that Tencent might contact. Sort them by size and willingness to cooperate. Send it to me tonight."
Chen Mo replied instantly with a "Okay".
After the office quieted down, Lu Ran leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a while.
Unbeknownst to anyone, a full-blown war for the top spot in China's gaming industry is raging on the eighteenth floor of this office building.
Lu Ran opened her eyes and saw the whiteboard photo printout spread out on the table.
The photo is labeled with terms like "internet troll deployment," "issue guidance," "digital sovereignty," "login monitoring," and "defensive channel signing."
Each item was marked with the person in charge and the completion deadline, and the handwriting was his own, messy but clear.
He stared at the paper for a while, then sat up straight, turned on his computer, created a new document, and typed a line at the beginning of the document: "Tencent's Joint Encirclement and Suppression of TUTU: Response Plan - Phase Two".
The battle came earlier than he expected, and the battle lines stretched longer than he anticipated.
But he had more time to prepare than he expected, and he had more cards up his sleeve than he anticipated.
After he finished out the framework for the second phase of the plan, he saved the document, stood up, and walked to the window.
Down on the street, a van with the TUTU Technology logo was unloading goods, and several young people in dark blue overalls were carrying things out of the van.
TUTU Technology is still a living, operating, and moving company.
The future belongs to young companies.
...