Chapter 857: Finger Games’ Public Relations Crisis!

January 24th, the second day of the Chinese New Year.

Zhao Xuming and the advance team from Long Yu Corporation took the plane from Los Angeles airport and landed in Shanghai Airport.

Zhao Xuming felt like a lifetime had pa.s.sed since he stepped onto Shanghai’s land a month ago.

Zhao Xuming, Long Yu Corporation’s employees, and two other clubs were there when he went. However, when he returned, only Zhao Xuming and Long Yu Corporation’s employees were left.

That was because the two clubs had been eliminated after the group stages. Naturally, they had no reason to stay in Los Angeles and had already flown back.

It had been a long time since he heard about these two clubs on the internet.

The reason was simple. They had to play dead since they played so badly in the international compet.i.tion!

It was still effective for these two teams to pretend to be dead. There was basically no one criticizing them online anymore on the internet. Their public opinion had even improved!

On one hand, it was because FV Team had won the champions.h.i.+p for domestic players. Everyone was busy being happy and could not be bothered to criticize the two teams that were accompanying them. On the other hand, it was because various news during the international compet.i.tion had gradually been disclosed. Most people realized that the failure of these two teams could not be blamed entirely on the players. There were many reasons for the failure.

The two teams would naturally not be bombarded with concentrated firepower now that the blame had been distributed.

Thus, while these two clubs did not gain much from the Los Angeles trip, they did not lose much either.

At the very least, they would be reimbursed for their air tickets and accommodation. It would not be a loss for the players to go out and compete in international compet.i.tions.

However, the entire trip to Los Angeles was terrible for Zhao Xuming!

Zhao Xuming generously arranged for all his employees to sit in business cla.s.s because there were not many people. Finally, he made up for the grievance he felt when he went to Los Angeles.

However, he still purposely chose a later flight to Shanghai because he did not want to b.u.mp into FV Team.

Otherwise, wouldn’t everyone be sitting in business cla.s.s and FV team discussing the champions.h.i.+p excitedly on the plane? Wouldn’t that be equivalent to whipping their own corpses?

Logically speaking, Zhao Xuming was the person-in-charge of domestic operations of IOI. It should be an honor for him since the domestic team won the IOI World Finals. However, the problem was that the FV winning the champions.h.i.+p had nothing to do with him. Instead, it was a slap in the face!

Zhao Xuming would definitely be very happy to ride on the popularity and take part of the credit for winning the champions.h.i.+p if it was the other two teams who had won.

Zhao Xuming could not take it since FV was the one who won the champions.h.i.+p.

He could not possibly say that “Boss Pei paid for the logistics team because I did not bring them to Los Angeles for early training, and that was why FV won the champions.h.i.+p. Didn’t I make a huge contribution?”

Thus, Zhao Xuming could only choose to hide from FV Club’s group and return to Shanghai at a different time.

This trip to Los Angeles was a complete failure for Zhao Xuming!

Initially, he had not wanted to bring FV Team along. In the end, they had paid for it themselves and b.u.mped into them at the airport.

He took economy cla.s.s while they took business cla.s.s;

He stayed in Courtyard by Marriott while they stayed in Ritz Carlton;

He booked a small corner on the first floor of the internet cafe, while they booked the entire second floor.

He walked to training, while they had a chauffeur and bodyguard;

He could only beg the European and American teams to train with him while they brought two training teams and had better results.

The two teams that he supported were both eliminated in the group stages. The other team had not even lost a single battle in the champions.h.i.+p with 9: 0.

This was a complete blow to him!

The most infuriating thing was that it was the Lunar New Year holiday now. FV Team had spent this year in Los Angeles, which was very memorable. On the other hand, Zhao Xuming had spent this year in Los Angeles, which highlighted his misery!

Thus, Zhao Xuming only had one thought now. He had to hurry back to the headquarters to report his work. Then, he would go home to rest and comfort his severely injured heart.

His subordinates had already arranged for Longyu Corporation to send a commercial car to pick him up after leaving the airport.

Zhao Xuming got into the car without saying a word. He closed his eyes and rested after putting on his seatbelt. He did not want to say anything else.

The flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai took about twelve hours. Zhao Xuming did not feel tired since he could sleep and rest comfortably in the business cla.s.s.

His fatigue mainly came from his mental state.

The accompanying employees of Long Yu Corporation were all core members of IOI’s operations and cooperation department. One of their important tasks in Los Angeles was to visit, interact, and learn at Finger Games’ headquarters. Naturally, they paid attention to the IOI World Finals the entire time.

The others were not as defeated as Zhao Xuming. They were not directly in charge after all. They could treat it as a public holiday.

Previously, everyone on the plane had been sleeping and watching movies. All their cell phones had been switched off. Now that they were back in Shanghai, many people opened their cell phones and went online to check the latest news.

Suddenly, an employee said in a panic, “Boss Zhao! Not good! Our company seems to be on the hot search! The public relations department is looking for you!”

Zhao Xuming, who had been resting with his eyes closed, opened his eyes immediately. “What?!”

How did they suddenly become a hot topic?

What happened exactly during the ten-odd hours on the plane?

Obviously, being scolded on the hot searches was most likely related to the IOI global finals this time. As the person-in-charge of IOI’s operations and cooperation department, Zhao Xuming did not dare to be negligent and quickly took out his cell phone to check.

Long Yu Corporation was indeed on the hot searches list!

Many netizens were crazily attacking Long Yu Corporation, especially Zhao Xuming. One of the most representative posts dug directly into the past, pulling Finger Games, Long Yu Corporation, and Zhao Xuming together, spitting blood!

“Let us see how the domestic IOI operator Long Yu Corporation operates while FV is working hard to win glory for the country!”

“We can at least confirm the following points based on what was released so far:

“First of all, Long Yu Corporation brought the other two clubs to Los Angeles and did not bring FV with them at all. It was a completely differential and unfair treatment! If Boss Pei had not been very generous and paid for it out of his own pocket, FV might not have been able to play mock compet.i.tions!”

“Secondly, Finger Games and Long Yu Corporation changed their versions randomly. Not only did they expose the failure of IOI’s original game design, but they also severely damaged the interests of all old gamers! However, they have been delaying the game, hoping to cover this topic through IOI’s global finals!”

“Lastly, and the most disgusting thing, Finger Games actually privately sent game Balancer to guide FRY Team! I want to ask, how can the compet.i.tion be fair if the organizer personally went to guide the club in the game?”

“Obviously, Finger Games’ official platform did not want FV Team to win the champions.h.i.+p. That’s why they thought of such a despicable method!”

“How can Zhao Xuming not know about this as a partner of Longyu Corporation? He definitely knew about it! Yet, he did not stop it. What does that mean? It means that he is guilty. He knows that he will be scolded to death for treating FV differently. That’s why he did not want FV to win the champions.h.i.+p. The national and national honor of compet.i.tive compet.i.tions cannot be compared to his personal interests. In the past, we usually called such people ‘traitors’!”

“If FV Team had not been so awesome and still won the champions.h.i.+p under such circ.u.mstances, if someone had not exposed this matter, I’m afraid that the ma.s.ses who did not know the truth would still be flaming FV Team, while the two main culprits, Long Yu Corporation and Finger Games, are hiding in the dark and laughing!”

“We can see the essence of Finger Games and Long Yu Corporation from this point.”

“Finger Games is not only full of discrimination and prejudice against domestic teams, but they are also a company that cannot afford to lose. If they can’t win fair and square, they would resort to such petty tricks;”

“On the other hand, as a large domestic company, it is extremely despicable for Longyu Corporation to act as an accomplice for their own interests!”

“For something like this to happen, other than being criticized online, the only other way for players is to boycott it!”

“Players who don’t play IOI have to boycott because Finger Games and Long Yu Corporation treat our champions differently. Players who play IOI have to boycott because Finger Games and Long Yu Corporation have never truly respected the rights of players!”

Zhao Xuming was stunned and his limbs turned cold.

What was going on!

How did the matter of Finger Games arranging a data balancer for FRY be exposed?!

He roughly read all the popular posts on the internet, and his hands could not help but tremble.

The public opinion was already one-sided and everyone was pointing fingers at him!

This was an unprecedented public relations crisis no matter whether it was for Long Yu Corporation or Finger Games. The consequences would be unimaginable if it was not handled well!

He took a closer look at the hot topics. In fact, most of the content had been exposed before.

For example, when IOI forcefully promoted the new version, it sacrificed the interests of old gamers and caused a lot of criticism online.

At the end of the quarterfinals, someone revealed that FV had gone to Los Angeles on their own and Long Yu Corporation had not brought them along.

At the end of the semifinals, FV used the tactics in GOG. Someone used this to refute the view that IOI’s design was better than GOG’s, and that GOG’s gameplay and tactics were ahead of IOI.

At that time, these posts had already created a certain influence on the internet. However, the finals had not started yet, so their influence was limited. They could still be suppressed.

However, now that FV Team had won the champions.h.i.+p, these things were naturally dug out by the netizens and started to settle accounts!

One of the most important points was that the foreign media had reported that Finger Games had sent a Data Balancer to help FRY come up with a strategy!

Obviously, the moment this news was released, all the hatred that had acc.u.mulated previously exploded!

That was because netizens might think that the previous incidents were bad, but they could still accept it. However, they could not accept this!

Finger Games was the organizer of the compet.i.tion after all. The organizer had sent the game’s data balance master to guide FRY team and directly interfered with the finals of the two teams. Wasn’t that pulling the strings?