Chapter 338: Esports Club
Imperial Capital, MG Esports Club.
"President Chen, welcome, welcome."
A slightly chubby, somewhat balding middle-aged man warmly welcomed Chen Mo. This was Bai Shunhua, the manager of MG Esports Club.
Bai Shunhua had heard about Chen Mo's reputation for a long time. Although he didn't know exactly why Chen Mo had come to visit the club, he had heard that Chen Mo was a very capable person. Since Chen Mo had taken the initiative to visit, Bai Shunhua naturally had to receive him personally.
Chen Mo smiled and said, "Manager Bai, you're too kind. I just happened to be in the Imperial Capital for some business, so I thought I'd come by and take a look."
"Please, come in."
Bai Shunhua led Chen Mo into the club building.
The esports clubs in this parallel world were somewhat different from those in Chen Mo's previous life.
In Chen Mo's previous life, the main esports projects were mostly MOBAs, FPS games, and RTS games. MMORPGs were not considered qualified esports projects because creating a top-tier account in such games required a huge investment of money and time. It was more about spending money than playing esports.
MMORPGs inherently had an unfairness in terms of time investment, and the balance and watchability of such games were hard to guarantee. Therefore, in Chen Mo's previous life, MMORPGs never managed to produce any influential competitions.
However, there was a slight difference in this parallel world: these esports clubs all had some additional side businesses: studios.
This was because the prototypes of these esports clubs were all game studios. As the oldest type of online game, MMORPGs had once been the dominant genre. The wealthy second-generation heirs who set their sights on the gaming field would first think of establishing their own studios.
Gold farming, power-leveling, game channel promotion... basically, anything related to games, the studios could get a piece of the action.
And these large MMORPGs were helpless against the existence of studios. Although studios would disrupt the game's ecosystem, they also played a role in promoting and popularizing the game.
Moreover, completely eliminating studios was simply unrealistic.
Thus, in this parallel world, large game companies and these game studios formed a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. When designing MMORPGs, game companies would leave a little room for the studios to operate, while the studios had an unspoken rule: they could not drain the pond to catch the fish, nor use any scripts or cheats that would harm the game company's interests.
After all, if it really came to a fight, the studios were no match for the game companies.
The esports clubs that grew up in this environment still retained some remnants of studio characteristics, not having fully professionalized like in Chen Mo's previous life.
Some MMORPGs, such as "Oracle of the Moon" and "Righteous Strike: Three Kingdoms," had rich content. "Righteous Strike: Three Kingdoms" was entirely focused on a nation-war mode, which gave the various clubs some room to operate.
Therefore, the clubs in this parallel world mainly focused on these three game genres for their strategic layout. The projects leaned more toward competitive gaming, while the MMORPG projects leaned more toward profitability.
The MG Esports Club building was quite impressive. It was a four-story building with a highly technological feel to its decor, giving a very avant-garde and modern impression.
On the outer wall of the building was the MG Esports Club logo: a mysterious nebula icon, very textured.
Bai Shunhua led Chen Mo on a tour of the internal structure of the entire MG Esports Club, introducing things as they walked.
"This is our players' daily rest area."
"This is the players' cafeteria. We've specially hired three cooking aunties, so we can basically guarantee the quality of the meals."
"Upstairs from here are the players' dormitories. We currently have two players per room, similar to a standard hotel room. But they're mostly filled with the players' personal belongings, nothing much to see, so we don't need to visit them for now."
"The entire area over here is the training room. You have to swipe a card to enter, and unrelated personnel are not allowed in, mainly to avoid affecting the players' daily training."
Bai Shunhua swiped his ID card on the access control at the entrance of the training area, and the high-tech glass door opened.
"President Chen, please."
Bai Shunhua led Chen Mo into the training area.
The training area was divided into many small cubicles. Each row had seven seats, with plenty of space between them, and the environment was quite good.
Many players were training. Occasionally, someone glanced at Bai Shunhua and Chen Mo before turning back to continue playing their games.
Bai Shunhua introduced, "We currently have six major divisions. On the FPS side, we have the 'Blaze Assault' division and the 'Wolf Soul' division, with a total of thirteen players. Those two divisions are at the very back, and they use VR gaming pods for training."