1novels Chapter 470 Openly repairing the plank road while secretly crossing the Chencang pass
Chapter 470 Openly repairing the plank road while secretly crossing the Chencang pass
After finishing the agency matters, Lu Ran planned to continue studying the design documents of "Honor of Kings".
After all, compared to League of Legends, Honor of Kings has more Chinese elements. Although its quality may not be as high as League of Legends, its influence will not be bad if it is promoted from the beginning.
In the afternoon, Zhou Mingzhe rushed in, and Lu Ran thought there was an update on the negotiations with the European agent.
To everyone's surprise, Zhou Mingzhe's expression turned serious, and what he said next was not good news either.
"Mr. Lu, something's happened at Tencent."
Lu Ran pushed the keyboard in front of him forward and pointed to the sofa, saying, "Don't rush, sit down and talk slowly."
Zhou Mingzhe steadied himself and sat down on the sofa, saying, "Tencent sent a formal business letter to our company this morning. The wording was very polite, but the core message was the same—they are demanding a renegotiation of the cooperation terms for 'League of Legends,' citing 'significant changes in the market environment and cooperation conditions.' Specifically, the success in the European market has made the game's overall commercial value exceed the initial assessment at the time of signing, and they believe that the current revenue sharing ratio is no longer suitable for the 'fundamental principle of mutual benefit.'"
Lu Ran understood what Zhou Mingzhe meant as soon as he heard his words, but he didn't interrupt rashly. Instead, he turned his head and asked, "How many do they want?"
"I can't say for sure about the new revenue sharing plan, but the letter mentioned 'it is recommended to refer to the internationally accepted revenue sharing ratio between the publisher and the developer.' I checked, and the internationally accepted ratio is roughly between 50/50 and 70/30. According to them, at least 10% more of their share will be added from the current amount, and this is just a preliminary offer; it may be increased further later," Zhou Mingzhe explained, wiping the sweat from his brow.
Zhou Mingzhe then added, "There's something even more troublesome. The letter ends by mentioning that Tencent will 'reassess the cooperation model for the player account system.' This statement is vague, but it only means one thing—they are considering cutting off or restricting authorization for the WeChat login interface."
Upon hearing this, Lu Ran's brows furrowed.
In this world, Tencent didn't have QQ, but in its early days, WeChat's business covered the entire country, and it was registered using WeChat accounts.
Because WeChat IDs are all numbers, they are easy to remember. Combined with WeChat's social attributes, almost every internet user has a WeChat ID.
This is one of the reasons why WeChat games have become so successful.
In China, although League of Legends offers login options via WeChat, TUTU account, and mobile phone number, due to the sheer size of WeChat's business, 7% of players prioritize WeChat login.
Compared to TUTU, WeChat is more relevant to the work and lives of more people and is a product that TUTU has not yet been able to replace.
If Tencent really manipulates the licensing process, even just by slightly slowing down the stability and response speed of the interface, it could cause problems for players' login experience.
Even more serious is that if they cut off the authorization directly, millions of players will be unable to log in to the game overnight, and TUTU doesn't even have a quick alternative account solution.
Lu Ran thought for a moment, then asked, "Does Chen Mo know about this?"
Lu Ran remembered that Chen Mo had indeed reminded him of this issue before, but Lu Ran hadn't taken it seriously because League of Legends hadn't been released yet.
Looking back now, I realize I was indeed a bit careless.
The main problem is that everything has gone too smoothly since I came into this world.
Whether it's writing songs, scripts, or games, there's basically nothing Lu Ran can't handle.
But this problem is indeed quite tricky.
If not handled properly, it could give millions of players a bad impression of League of Legends.
Once a player loses interest in a game, the difficulty of getting them back increases exponentially.
This problem is indeed very urgent.
"Chen Mo also knows about this. He's the one who sent me to contact you first. He's trying to communicate with people at Tencent."
"He said he had a premonition about this, but he didn't expect it to happen so quickly, especially at a time when he had just gained a foothold in the European market. It was clearly not a spur-of-the-moment decision."
Lu Ran nodded.
Such a big thing couldn't have been decided on a whim.
But there must have been some triggers, such as the recent popularity of the European server.
Right now, it's just a European server. If there are Middle Eastern servers, South American servers, Southeast Asian servers, or even North American servers in the future, they won't have the confidence to turn against us again.
Now, with the European server just starting to show signs of improvement, renegotiating is the most opportune time for Tencent.
Lu Ran had no hope for Chen Mo.
After all, he just jumped ship from Tencent. Even if he had good connections within Tencent, he probably wouldn't be able to influence internal decisions.
Lu Ran stood up, walked to the window, and watched the pedestrians wearing winter clothes and scarves hurrying by on the street below.
He quickly went through the whole story in his mind. Tencent had already given signals, starting with the meeting Chen Mo relayed, from the change in tone from "wait and see about cooperation" to "necessary separation," each step indicating a tightening of their stance.
However, he was busy launching in Europe, expanding branch offices, and negotiating official investment at the time, and did not pay full attention to Tencent's attitude.
Now the opponent has played their card, and at a perfectly timed moment.
He had just made progress in Europe and hadn't had time to fully realize the profits there. In the domestic market, he was still heavily reliant on the user base of WeChat login.
If Tencent were to seize control of the company at this juncture, the entire company's operational rhythm would be disrupted.
"Brother Zhou, don't rush." Lu Ran turned around and walked back to his desk to sit down. "What suggestions does Chen Mo have?"
Zhou Mingzhe said, "He said he could contact a few mid-level managers within Tencent to get their opinions, but it's inconvenient right now. He's already made his move, and he doesn't have any connections left at Tencent. He suggested that we don't rush to respond to Tencent's letter, but wait a few days and see if they take any more concrete actions."
"Then let's delay. Have HR and legal prepare a contingency plan, listing the worst-case scenarios. If they really cut off the login interface, how do we redirect users to the TUTU independent account system in the shortest time? Also, what are the alternative channels? If Tencent's channels are blocked, how do we quickly build an alternative distribution path?"
"Okay," Zhou Mingzhe agreed, then asked, "Do you think they might really go that far?"
Lu Ran thought for a moment and said, "I don't think so, at least not for now. Completely cutting off the login interface is a lose-lose situation, and Tencent would also face a significant risk of losing users. But if things really fall apart, they might use this as leverage to pressure us into accepting even more stringent cooperation terms."
So their goal is—
"They're trying to force us to make concessions. They're raising the revenue share, giving them more rights, and they might even be trying to use this opportunity to regain control of League of Legends' operations."
Zhou Mingzhe was silent for a moment: "So what do you plan to do? Really give in?"
"Impossible." Lu Ran's tone was calm but firm. "If we give in now, we'll have to give in ten times later. We can't open this door to Tencent; once we do, it'll never end."
He paused for a moment and then said, "Prepare the contingency plan as I told you, and I'll think about whether there are any other options."
After hanging up the phone, Lu Ran sat in his office chair for a long time.
The sunlight outside the window changed from the white of midday to the warm yellow of the afternoon, and the light in the office gradually dimmed, but he didn't turn on the lights.
How many cards does he have left to play?
First, the official investment has been agreed upon, which provides some buffer in terms of policy. If Tencent really goes too far, it can coordinate through official channels.
Secondly, the European market is gradually opening up. Although it cannot support the shortfall in domestic business in the short term, it is at least a backup source of profit.
Third, Minecraft and CrossFire are relatively independent products and are not directly affected by WeChat login. Even if the worst happens, at least these two products can stabilize the core market.
The problem is that League of Legends is TUTU Technology's core product, accounting for the majority of the company's total revenue.
If this product gets stuck, there's only so much that other products can fill the gap.
He needs to find a solution that can hedge this risk in a relatively short period of time.
He picked up his phone and called Chen Mo. Chen Mo answered after one ring.
"Did Brother Zhou tell you about Tencent?" Lu Ran asked.
"I already said so. I was just about to call you." Chen Mo's voice sounded even lower than usual. "I've been thinking about it, and Tencent's timing this time is perfect. They know you just finished with the European launch and the official investment, and they thought you were distracted, so they wanted to take this opportunity to put pressure on you."
"So where do you think their bottom line is?"
Chen Mo thought for a moment and said, "They probably won't really cut off the login interface; that would look too bad and wouldn't benefit them. But they might do a few things—first, extend the login verification response time, making players think it's a network problem when it's actually the interface being throttled. Second, block the registration channel for new users, preventing new players from registering a League of Legends account via WeChat and forcing them to choose other methods. Third, they might add a prompt on the login page, making players feel that 'login with a TUTU account is a better experience,' which is actually diverting traffic towards them."
After hearing this, Lu Ran's judgment of Chen Mo improved even more.
This person really understands Tencent's internal operations; he can even describe how they would do things in great detail.
"So how do you think I should respond?" Lu Ran asked, wanting to hear Chen Mo's opinion as well.
As one of the company's three key figures, Chen Mo's opinion is of great importance to him.
My suggestion is...
"Openly repair the plank road while secretly crossing the Chencang pass."
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