Chapter 955: Let’s Talk
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Compared to his predecessor, Feng Xianjun’s luck was quite good. When he started managing the Alliance, Ye Qiu’s era had ended, and the Golden Generation had emerged. The competitive scene prospered with the explosive advent of new talents.
However, even though his luck was good, Feng Xianjun had his worries due to his luck.
It was because there were too many talents. No player like Ye Qiu, who had the ability to dominate the scene and become the Alliance’s representative, had appeared since then. It truly made Feng Xianjun feel distressed.
In terms of achievements, after Ye Qiu, there were a total of three teams that had become champions: Tyranny, Tiny Herb, Blue Rain…...
Team Tyranny’s ace player and Ye Qiu’s rival, Han Wenqing, finally toppled Team Excellent Era’s reign of three consecutive championship titles. Feng Xianjun had taken up his position as the Alliance’s chairman that year. As soon as he took office, he wanted to raise Han Wenqing up as the number one player in Glory. However, no matter how they tried marketing it, Han Wenqing’s aggressive appearance made it seem like they were promoting a crime film…..
Games were viewed as terrible things in many people’s eyes. Having someone who looked like he was a violent criminal as their representative would not be different from having their Alliance beat down. In the end, Feng Xianjun had to hastily put a stop to this plan.
After Team Tyranny, Team Tiny Herb won the championships. Their ace player Wang Jiexi was a player with the title Magician. Unfortunately, Wang Jiexi had a clear flaw in his appearance. He had one big eye and one small eye. In front of the camera, he would often look very terrifying. Wang Jiexi’s appearance wasn’t easy to work with. After Ye Qiu, Wang Jiexi’s two championship titles was more than enough. He could be considered as the leading figure during that period of time. In the end, the Alliance didn’t directly shirk away from Wang Jiexi like they did with Han Wenqing. However, they didn’t display too much enthusiasm for him.
In between Team Tiny Herb’s two championship victories, Team Blue Rain won one championship. The two leading players were from the famous Golden Generation. Their appearances and personalities were easy to work with too. Unfortunately, Feng Xianjun personally detested Huang Shaotian. In the eyes of older people, his chatty personality was very frivolous behavior. Feng Xianjun didn’t want the Alliance’s representative to be this type of person.
In the blink of an eye, four seasons passed since Feng Xianjun took office. Without any suitable targets, he could only spread the net wider. As a result, the campaign to build a star became very successful. Numerous All Stars deeply loved by countless fans emerged in the Alliance. This could be seen since the start of the All Star Weekend. However, even though the group of stars shined brightly, it was always missing the very brightest one up until Zhou Zekai came.
When this player rose and swept the skies, the Alliance’s campaign to build a star reached its peak. He innately possessed many desirable characteristics. Later on, he perfectly piled on one glorious achievement after the other.
Team Samsara was the Alliance’s nouveau riche. Before Zhou Zekai’s addition, Team Samsara was part of the mid-tier and bottom-tier group that couldn’t even make it to the playoffs.
But because of Zhou Zekai’s addition, they were like a salted fish that moved once more. They transformed from a weak team to the current defending champions. Team Samsara’s abrupt rise was unprecedented in the Alliance. Besides Samsara, the former champions Excellent Era, Tyranny, Tiny Herb, and Blue Rain had all been established names since the start of the Alliance. All of them possessed powerful guilds. It was the best proof of their solid foundation. As for Samsara, this weak team broke through the monopoly formed by these powerhouses. Everything had started with their new star, Zhou Zekai.
The current Samsara had joined the ranks of the powerhouses. Zhou Zekai became the undisputed number one player in Glory. The leading figure that Feng Xianjun had been waiting for had finally appeared.
In fact, starting from season seven, the Alliance’s support for Zhou Zekai was already very obvious. However, Glory was still a competitive eSport. Without a championship cup, Zhou Zekai was still a bit lacking. Everything changed after season eight. From the public to the officials, Zhou Zekai was indisputably placed at the top. Numerous media outlets rallied for him, declaring that Zhou Zekai had pushed the Alliance to new heights.
From the Alliance’s statistics, Feng Xianjun would not deny this point. After Team Samsara won the championships, the Alliance’s overall revenue had increased explosively compared to the previous few seasons. The new season had numerous widely-discussed transfers, further pushing the season nine’s viewership to an all-time high.
The Glory Alliance was moving towards an even more prosperous era. At this moment, a sudden increase in mistakes couldn’t help but make Feng Xianjun worried. From the data, the epidemic of mistakes this month and its effects on the quality of the matches had yet to be extensively noticed by their players.
For one, very few players closely followed everything that went on in the Alliance. Secondly, players wouldn’t pay much attention to this statistic. But even if the players didn’t notice, how could those media outlets specifically looking for topics to write about ignore it? The media also did a monthly briefing on that month’s circumstances. The abnormality in February wouldn’t escape the media’s attention. They would certainly be reporting it without restraint very soon. After the players became aware, the Alliance needed to provide an acceptable explanation. The truth found through asking the various teams wasn’t a beautiful story. They couldn’t just tell these players that the lackluster quality and increased number of mistakes in the matches this month were because the pro players were absorbed in the game, right?
That would be too comical!
What made it even worse for Feng Xianjun was that he had no way of stopping these teams from competing in the game because this ensured that the Alliance would continue to grow. The league that was established could not be separated from the game. This had always been one of the features of the league. When the league first started, it had been designed to be extremely close to the players and fans, making the Glory competitive scene stand out among the numerous other esports and prosper until today.
Esports was dependent on the game. Whether it was an online game or a standalone title, keeping such popularity for so long could be considered a miracle. This was a win-win for the Glory game and the Glory Alliance. Neither side had considered breaking up this format.
What made Fang Xianjun depressed was that if it was just the teams competing against each other in the game, it wouldn’t result in this type of outcome. Their past data explained this point. This time, everything was because of Ye Qiu and his Team Happy. The feedback from the various teams seemed to prove this point.
Ye Qiu... did he have to find him and tell him to stop messing around?
Feng Xianjun thought about it, but shook his head. Let alone this request being too broad, the other side had no reason to listen. Even if the request was reasonable and fair, was Ye Qiu the type of person who would just listen to orders? If not, the former chairman Jin Chengyi wouldn’t have sighed, saying that Ye Qiu’s existence had slowed the Alliance’s growth by two years.
In the end, the most reasonable decision that could be made by Feng Xianjun was to advise the teams and to communicate with them. He could not directly prohibit them. After thinking about it, he might as well convene a private conference for the appropriate people in the Alliance’s top ten teams.
Convening a conference for every team was very normal. Because of February’s abnormality, the various teams also had their own thoughts, so they quietly responded to this time’s conference and ran over to the Alliance headquarters to drink tea together.
Feng Xianjun hadn’t called for anyone in particular, so the various teams just arranged for their usual participants: the Club manager and the team captain.
Ten teams. Twenty people. At the big roundtable in the Alliance headquarters meeting room #1, everyone was familiar with each other. Sure enough, this conference didn’t seem too official. There weren’t even seating arrangements. The various teams came, greeted one another, and then picked a seat to sit down on. When it was about time to start, chairman Feng Xianjun also came to the meeting.
The room was silent. Everyone knew what they were here to talk about because in front of everyone was a newspaper: the 2/28 Friday edition of the Esports Home. In eye-catching font, the headlines had put the total number of mistakes made in the Alliance’s February matches. Below, there were comparisons to past numbers, letting the readers know just how shocking the the total number of mistakes were.
"Ahem...." Feng Xianjun seemed to accidentally but also intentionally put his hands on the newspaper on the table. He cleared his throat before starting to speak.
"This situation isn’t too good..." Feng Xianjun got right to the point*.
"Now that it’s been reported, the effects cannot be avoided, so I hope that everyone can hurry and go back to their regular routine." Feng Xianjun said.
The managers and team captains forced a smile. How could they have not thought about it? But if there was fish, how could the bear not want some? They had to fight for materials in the game, but they also didn’t want the conditions of their players to be affected. How could they not want the best of both worlds? But what could they do?
"Honestly... if it wasn’t for Ye Qiu making trouble, it wouldn't turn out like this." The team captains would also need to fight for bosses. They had been on the front lines, so they had the most authority to make any statements. The captain of the tenth place team, Team Thunderclap’s Liu Hao, decisively brought out the topic of Ye Qiu.
The former vice-captain of Excellent Era, Liu Hao, had been transferred to Team Thunderclap this summer. Along with his teammate He Ming, they became the bargaining chip for Excellent Era’s purchase of Xiao Shiqin. At Team Thunderclap, Liu Hao was chosen as the general among the dwarfs, and became appointed as the team captain. But how could the current Team Thunderclap be anything in Liu Hao’s eyes? From the very start, Liu Hao had always been seeking for a better path. But even if he thought of a better path, he first needed to perform well. As the team captain this season, he had actually performed spectacularly, bringing Team Thunderclap to tenth place. They even had hopes of making it into the playoffs.
Liu Hao would obviously cherish this type of achievement. As a result, he put more and more effort and even fought for wild bosses for Team Thunderclap, naturally in order to strengthen his team. Any pro player would spare no effort if they had the chance to enter playoffs.
Unfortunately, their guild’s strength wasn’t that strong. Along with Ye Qiu making trouble, they were doing so poorly at snatching bosses that it made Liu Hao feel ashamed. Liu Hao would obviously do his utmost to push the blame onto Ye Qiu. His resentment towards Ye Qiu was unrelated with him being in Excellent Era or not.