Chapter 227 Buy Buy Buy (6k subscription required)

As early as 2012, some game studios had already developed MOBA mobile games.

The earliest version of “Heroes’ War Song” was not even inferior to the later remade “Honor of Kings” in terms of quality, but precisely because “Heroes’ War Song” was too good, almost no Android phones in China could run it at that time.

Therefore, “Heroes of War” can be regarded as a game exclusive to Apple.

After that, many domestic manufacturers launched many MOBA-type games. As the domestic agent of “League of Legends”, Penguin naturally had to start in this area.

This time they are not even pirating, but have a legitimate reason.

But what did Penguin’s Light Studio produce?

The out-of-game development system was almost copied from the model of “Freedom Fight”. The game balance of “King of Glory” is not even as good as a piece of shit. The krypton gold hero Lucifer can really do one against five and still have some left. Basically, whichever side is chosen, the victory or defeat is determined.

Even the “Heroes of War” produced by Timi Studio at the beginning was of the same nature.

However, the degree of completion of “Heroes of War” is not as good as “King of Heroes”, so from its birth to trial operation, it is not as good as “King of Heroes”. But it was precisely because of the initial failure that Yao Qiangguang was able to take back the design rights of the game and let this garbage game go back to the drawing board.

These are the things that happened when Lu Yao went to study abroad.

When Lv Yao returned from studying abroad, Yao Qiguang had already left Timi Studio, and Chen Yu, the president of Guangliang Studio, was busy competing with Zeng Lun. As for the projects developed by the two studios –

Compared with the “Honor of Kings” created by Lu Yao and others, it can be said to be terrible!
Even compared with the three thousand year old “Heroic Battle Song”, it is far inferior.

But this is actually a common problem among large companies. They can always use more and higher resources to produce outdated products from a few years ago.

The MOBA mobile game “Win the Peak” released by Douyin in early 2025 is not as good as “Honor of Kings” in 2018 in terms of game performance, but the reason why the game developed by Douyin has poor results is to cater to overseas players.

“The Peak” is mainly popular in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Even the heroes in it have very Indonesian characteristics. The living standards and the level of smartphones there are incomparable to those in China.

So it is understandable that TikTok came up with that thing.

So why did penguins come up with such an irritating thing?

Penguin’s top management, especially Tencent, who has been hiding behind the scenes for a long time, also has such doubts.

So when Chen Yu and Zeng Lun rushed to Mr. Ren’s office, they saw Mr. Ren sitting in his office chair with a tense face and a low aura that turned the entire office into a minefield that no one dared to step into.

It seemed that after just a few days of not seeing each other, Mr. Ren looked much more haggard.

Or……

The haggard look on his face was caused by the worry he had all night last night.

Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong stood outside Mr. Ren’s office, hesitating for a long time but unable to muster up the courage to go in.

After a long while, Mr. Ren let out a long sigh, looked up at the door of his office, and said in a low voice: “Early this morning, the President’s Office sent someone to take away the things made by your two studios.”

Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong’s hearts suddenly skipped a beat.

It’s bad food!

Isn’t this equivalent to directly breaking the sky?

Mr. Ren stood up slowly, holding on to the armrest of his office chair, and even said with some effort: “It’s just right that you are here too. The CEO’s office asked you to come with me to the meeting.”

Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong began to feel uneasy.

broken.

Shangnan charged and challenged the Penguin. I thought they wouldn’t become the ones used by the Penguin to deal with Shangnan Guangan.

But their direct superiors had already spoken, so how could they hide? Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong could only follow Mr. Ren downstairs with great trepidation.

But just as he reached the downstairs, Mr. Ren stopped.

Because there is an old gray Crown car parked under their building. Although the car is very old, it is well maintained. The shiny paint and the old-fashioned car model give it a sense of old money style.

When Mr. Ren saw the Crown car, he said to Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong, “Go to my car and wait for me first.”

Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong got into the car with Mr. Ren’s car keys, and Mr. Ren went directly to the back seat of the Crown car, opened the door, and got in.

As soon as Mr. Ren entered, he said, “President Zhang, why are you here?”

Sitting in the back seat of this Crown car is none other than Zhang Zhidong, one of the founders of Penguin, who is known as the “Father of Penguin” in the industry.

Because about 10 years ago, Penguin introduced President Liu to lead Penguin to a comprehensive transformation and move rapidly towards the direction of Internet investment banking. The veterans of the wireless business unit and the veterans who founded Penguin were all cleared out one by one.

As the father of Penguin, Dean Zhang was eliminated relatively late.

He stepped down as executive director in the first half of last year and resigned as chief technology officer around September last year. He only held the titles of Honorary Dean of Penguin Academy and Lifetime Honorary Advisor of Penguin Group, which was considered a decisive move.

Now Penguin has basically completed its transformation into an investment bank. Under the leadership of President Liu, the market value of the entire company is growing, and money is coming more and more easily.

Mr. Ren is the only remaining member of the original veteran faction.

However, Mr. Ren, who is in charge of the game and digital content business, has always been eyeing the president’s party and has been trying to find a way to take the digital content business away from Mr. Ren’s hands.

This time, when the group’s top management called a president’s meeting, Mr. Ren was even ready to burn his boats.

But he didn’t expect that at this critical juncture, Zhang Zhidong, who had been kicked out of the core power layer, would come to him again.

Zhang Zhidong sighed when he saw the current General Ren, and said with concern: “You look very haggard, and your aura seems particularly scary. Are you thinking of signing a military order this time?”

President Ren pursed his lips and said, “The president will not let go of this opportunity easily.”

Dean Zhang shook his head and smiled, “You still don’t know our CEO Teng very well. Although he is usually shy and introverted, he is very decisive when it comes to taking ruthless action. The group’s current transformation into an investment bank is a last resort. CEO Teng doesn’t want to be challenged again and again.”

“He wanted to leave a good reputation for himself, but he was also afraid that he might be targeted for monopolizing the market.”

Dean Zhang looked at Mr. Ren beside him and said, “But this time is different. The multi-dimensional combination of the game launch conference at Nanguangan was enough to touch the sensitive and delicate nerve of our Mr. Teng.”

President Ren understood immediately: “Are you saying that this time President Teng is finally going to have a disagreement with President Liu?”

“if it is like this……”

Mr. Ren placed one hand on the door armrest and tapped unconsciously, while his other hand was resting on the other armrest and stroking his chin.

Soon he heaved a sigh of relief: “I understand, and I know what to do.”

Mr. Ren actually still remembers what President Zhang said when President Liu took power: “When a group goes to one extreme, it will often go to another extreme later, but eventually the group will restore its internal balance.”

Dean Zhang came here just to remind him of this. After all, President Ren has been outside the core power circle for a long time, and he may not be very clear about President Teng’s situation.

But once he made the pros and cons clear, Mr. Ren knew what he should do.

Dean Zhang looked at President Ren with satisfaction and said, “You are the force we have tried our best to preserve, and you are also the only remaining fruit of the veteran faction. As long as you hold back this time, there will be basically no obstacles on your way to the core decision-making level in the future.”

To put it bluntly, a large group like Penguin is no different from the officialdom.

As the chairman, Mr. Teng has always been behind the scenes and seems to have little presence, but he has always strongly controlled the direction of the group through the board of directors.

The president faction and the veteran faction are nothing more than bargaining chips used by President Teng to play with the emperor’s mind.

But anyone who can play with President Tencent must be smart. As the father of Penguin, Zhang Zhidong retired last year and even used his retirement to protect President Ren, waiting for the balance within the group to be completely unbalanced.

Only when the president’s faction has absolute power will the veteran faction have the possibility to take charge of the core business of the group again.

Only Mr. Ren, who had always been retained in the middle level, could enter the core decision-making level.

The commotion at Nanguangan this time was just the right blow to exacerbate this imbalance.

After Mr. Ren was enlightened, his tense mood finally relaxed. He came from a sales background and had relatively little experience in the group. In addition, Mr. Teng had always been a low-key person, so he could not figure out Mr. Teng’s pulse.

But as long as the pulse is accurate, he knows what to do.

President Ren said to Dean Zhang again: “Then take care of yourself. I will go to the meeting.”

“it is good.”

Penguin’s president’s office meeting was held in the Penguin Building. The distance to get there was not far, and it only took a few minutes to get there via the internal roads of the park.

After swiping the card to enter the president’s floor of Penguin Building, President Ren took Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong into the president’s conference room. When he came here just now, President Ren had reminded Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong that they could just listen in, and even if the president asked questions, they didn’t need to answer, he would answer them for them.

Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong were moved to tears by the care shown to them.

After Dean Zhang met with him, President Ren changed his original strategy and no longer needed Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong to explain, so he didn’t mind doing a favor.

Penguin’s CEO conference room is very grand, with a huge solid wood long table in the middle and elegant high-back chairs on both sides. There are also many chairs for audiences against the wall of the conference room.

Mr. Ren naturally had to sit at the table.

Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong found two chairs next to each other behind Mr. Ren and sat down. The two usually fought each other, but now they sat next to each other, feeling like they were relying on each other.

Mr. Ren was not the first one to arrive. After briefly greeting the other people in the conference room, he picked up the mobile phone he brought with him and got busy.

Soon, executives from all departments and business groups of Penguin arrived. Liu Chih-ping, who currently holds the sole power within Penguin, arrived at the President’s Recollection Room on time.

The president of Penguin Group has a high forehead and a square jaw. His face looks very round and square. He is also very domineering. When his transformation into an investment bank was obstructed by the veterans, he even said very impolitely in front of so many people at the group’s annual meeting –

“In the face of the group’s transformation, I hope certain small groups will not resist.”

“Don’t resist!”

There were rumors that President Liu was very rude when he spoke, but President Ren, who was present at the time, felt that it was more than just rude. It was extremely rude.

Because President Liu said this directly while slamming the table, and also when work started again after the annual meeting, Mr. Liu, the president of the wireless business unit and senior executive vice president of the group, who was one of the veteran leaders, left the stage in disgrace.

Just from this incident, we can see how overbearing President Liu’s character is. Even though he wears a pair of gentle black-framed glasses on his face, it cannot conceal his domineering and sharp nature.

President Liu came to the president’s conference room, with the corners of his slightly crooked mouth seeming to always have a bit of a crazy smile, but that was not intentional on President Liu’s part, his mouth just had a little crooked mouth.

As one of the protagonists of today’s meeting, President Liu sat down at the chairman’s table and nodded to President Ren as a greeting.

soon.

President Teng, who was wearing a gray suit, with a round and plump face, and even a bit of a Buddha-like appearance, came to the president’s conference room with a low mood and sat in the main seat in the middle.

President Teng is an introvert and not good at speaking. As soon as he sat down, he took the meeting outline he had written himself from the secretary behind him and said, “Everyone, I won’t waste any more time on small talk.”

He turned to look at his secretary, who immediately played Lu Yao’s live broadcast from last night in the back of the president’s conference room, but the volume was turned down very low.

But in the quiet president’s conference room, Lu Yao’s sincere voice on the stage still sounded particularly loud in everyone’s ears.

The video that President Teng asked his secretary to play had been edited. When Lu Yao talked about their joint launch of the “Xiaomi King Card” with telecom operators, President Teng’s face with frameless glasses had become so gloomy that it seemed like thunder.

Seeing the executives in the room silent, President Teng became increasingly angry.

But he was a man who never showed his emotions. Faced with the silence of all the civil and military officials in the court, he raised his hand and signaled the secretary to pause the video. Then, President Teng threw the pen worth more than 200,000 yuan in his hand directly onto the conference table.

The clanging sound hit everyone’s heart like a heavy drum.

Now no one dared to speak.

President Teng took a deep breath and said softly: “Do you know what this means?”

President Liu had done his homework before coming here. He said: “This means that Shanghai Nanguang’an has opened up the channels between the game ecosystem, social media, user terminals and operators. A self-contained large group has taken shape.”

President Teng forced a smile and nodded: “Boss Liu, what you said is very good. Are we just going to let him grow bigger and even squeeze us out of the market in the future?”

“I remember we were also working on a MOBA mobile game, and I even asked someone to bring our stuff over.”

As he spoke, the secretary behind President Teng started playing the MOBA games made by Guangliang Studio and Timi Studio again. President Teng even specially put the works of Guangliang, Timi, and Shangnan Guangan side by side to facilitate comparison among everyone.

When the video finished playing, there was still silence in the president’s conference room.

President Teng asked: “Do you have anything to say? I want to ask you, what exactly is this thing we made? Are we in two different eras? Why is it that in the same era, Penguin, as a giant Internet company, can still make such a thing?”

When these words came out, Chen Yu and Wang Xiaoyong almost peed their pants.

The chairman’s knife is pointed directly at their faces!
But President Teng’s attack was not over yet: “And I also heard that the main creative staff of the company that made this game was poached from us? Even the former president of our Timi Studio was poached?”

“Can someone give me an explanation?”

In an instant, all eyes were focused on Mr. Ren’s face.

But after being pointed out, Mr. Ren was not at all flustered. Facing everyone’s gaze, Mr. Ren smiled and said, “Speaking of the main creative staff of Shangnan Guang’an, you should know why they left in the first place, Mr. Teng. And even after they left, didn’t you always pay attention to them?”

When Quantum Studio first developed “God of War”, it caused a huge response in the gaming circle. For a time, netizens were excited and it was as if it was the New Year.

Even during that period, Penguin’s reputation was changing. People began to say that Penguin was actually a conscientious company and that Penguin was “rich in conscience.”

At that time, President Tencent even personally promoted “Douluo Dalu” and spent tens of millions to make a promotional video. Douluo Dalu did receive a lot of positive reviews after it was launched, but the number of people in the Douluo Dalu studio was too small and the pace of the online game was particularly fast.

Therefore, it is difficult to monetize Douzhanshen later.

But why was Quantum Studios laid off? Why were the main creative staff driven out?

Mr. Ren did not mention it by name, but Mr. Teng knew it.

Because Penguin was transforming into an investment bank at that time and they needed better performance, President Liu led the closure of many game studios and streamlined and merged the remaining studios into four major studios.

President Teng is of course aware of all of this. As for why the people from Game Science were poached, that was because of their own development. What else can be done?
Mr. Ren continued: “As for why Yao Qiguang, the former president of Timi Studio, left…”

When he said this, Chen Yu’s heart suddenly rose to his throat.

He also played a role in Yao Qiguang’s resignation.

But Mr. Ren did not bring Chen Yu out. He just took out his mobile phone and played a video. The video showed Yao Qiangguang, before he resigned, walking between various departments of the company with a crutch and a lame leg, hoping to allocate some promotional resources to their studio.

Looking at Yao Qiguang in the surveillance video, and seeing him walking with difficulty while dragging his rotten leg, Mr. Ren actually felt a sense of empathy for Yao Qiguang at this moment.

In Mr. Ren’s opinion, Yao Qiguang really couldn’t withstand the pressure and was eliminated.

But Yao Qiguang at that moment was indeed too miserable. Could the Yao Qiguang at that moment be my future self?
Thinking of this, Mr. Ren’s eye sockets also turned red, and his voice was a little choked: “Everyone, this is the surveillance footage that Yao Qiguang left in our company shortly before he resigned.”

President Teng frowned when he saw the surveillance footage.

He remembered Yao Qiangguang, a talent that Vice President Tang, the group’s vice president, had spent more than a year to recruit. But why did such a meritorious talent end up in such a situation?

Before Mr. Teng could ask any more questions, Mr. Liu from the Internet Media Group was the first to ask, “Why are you showing this to us? Shouldn’t this be an internal management issue for your Interactive Entertainment Group?”

Mr. Ren said with a smile: “Is it just our own internal management problem? The development of the game business is indeed our own problem, but which of the channel promotion and performance assessment does not constrain our management?”

“Why is there such a big gap between what we produce and Nanguang’an? Putting aside the technical reasons, why do the games we make have so many pay-to-win contents? We have a model like League of Legends, but why can’t we even copy it well in our mobile game development projects?”

At this time, President Liu, who was wearing black-framed glasses, took off his glasses, rubbed his brows and said, “I see, President Ren is coming for me. You are not satisfied with the group’s assessment items, right?”

Mr. Ren smiled and said, “I was just answering Mr. Teng’s question.”

President Liu’s face, which was hidden by his hands, showed a sneer. Was he hoping to expand his power through the chairman?

The purpose is too obvious.

But yes.

The veteran faction now only has President Ren as its powerful force. Even if he wants to get rid of President Ren, it is unrealistic because that would put the entire company under his control, and the chairman would definitely not be happy to see such a scene happen.

So what he can do is to continuously weaken the power of Mr. Ren.

President Liu put on his black-framed glasses again. Just as he was about to say something, President Teng suddenly looked directly at President Ren and said, “Then, Mr. Ren, tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you! From now on, the group’s business will revolve around you.”

President Liu suddenly narrowed his eyes.

He is not from the mainland, so he really can’t understand the thought process of this group of people. How much money can the gaming industry make?
So President Liu directly said, “Boss Teng, it is too risky to focus the entire group’s business on the interactive entertainment business group, which has a clear generation gap in technology. It is also inconsistent with the current development direction of the group.”

President Teng sighed in his heart.

Although he tried his best to invite President Liu to join the group, and under President Liu’s changes, Penguin did make more money, but their own business was getting worse and worse…So he couldn’t move President Ren, and President Liu couldn’t move either.

President Teng smiled and said, “What can President Liu do? After all, we are an Internet company with our own business. Once we lose our market share, it will be very easy for us to become a sourceless water.”

President Liu scoffed at this statement.

Money is water!

Money can make money!

The most profitable business in the world is all about making money!

As for the Internet business…especially the gaming business, it’s nothing but a money-burning sinkhole.

However, President Liu still smiled and said, “Instead of seeking internal technological breakthroughs, it is better to directly buy foreign game companies with more advanced technology. There is a mobile game company in Finland that is gaining momentum. As long as the money is in place, they will be ours.”

When Mr. Ren heard what President Liu said, his brows furrowed. The rumors from outside turned out to be true. President Liu had been looking for opportunities to acquire overseas game companies.

And the target that President Liu has been eyeing recently is——

It’s the Finnish supercell!

(End of this chapter)