Chapter 373: Under the Spotlight
Hu Jing didn’t say a word. He silently started another custom match.
Orianna versus Karthus again, but this time the two sides swapped heroes.
The other members of the IF team stared intently at the screen, barely daring to breathe.
This was practically teaching Hu Jing how to play the game!
If Hu Jing lost this round, he’d have no room for complaint. If the other guy could solo kill your Orianna with Karthus, then turn around and solo kill your Karthus with Orianna, it proved this wasn’t about the hero—it was a gap in skill!
Ten minutes later.
“First blood!”
After Orianna reached level six, she used a very sneaky hidden ball, pulling Karthus back with her ultimate. She tanked one tower shot, took the kill on Karthus, and escaped with a sliver of health.
Hu Jing had nothing to say.
Because he could feel it—he couldn’t win. He really couldn’t win! If the first match felt a bit confusing, the second one was a clear demonstration of the skill gap.
Hu Jing had played many games as Karthus himself, but he’d never found it so hard to land Karthus’s Q. Orianna’s movement was incredibly tricky, always dodging his Q. Even the occasional Q used to block her path was negated by Orianna’s E shield.
Karthus was at a disadvantage in the laning phase the entire time, and getting killed was an inevitable outcome. Even if Hu Jing played defensively, he would have lost his tower first anyway.
Chen Mo stood up. “Talent can give you a head start, but if you think talent can crush everything, let me tell you a statistic: Korean players train sixteen hours a day.”
Hu Jing remained silent.
Chen Mo waved to Sun Xiao. “Let’s go.”
After Chen Mo left, the atmosphere in the training room remained heavy. Hu Jing stared blankly at the computer screen, replaying the two laning phases against Chen Mo in his mind.
“Team leader, let’s look at the foreign teams’ information,” Hu Jing said.
…
Before the start of the League of Legends Season 1 World Championship, domestic gaming media treated it as a major event in October, giving it heavy coverage.
Because this tournament was unlike any e-sports competition before it. In every sense, it was unique.
League of Legends was already the hottest e-sports game in China, and it was moving toward that goal worldwide. In other words, the game had a massive audience base, and the hype was bound to be huge.
The prize pool for this championship set a historical record. No tournament organizer had ever offered so much prize money, which itself was a huge selling point.
From the various materials released before the event, this would be an e-sports competition with innovation in every aspect. Every detail was meticulously crafted, gathering some of the top-tier professional e-sports figures in the country. Its professionalism was beyond doubt.
Moreover, the term “S1” had already revealed Chen Mo’s ambition.
“S” stood for “Season,” and S1 was the first season. If there was a first season, there would be a second and a third. Clearly, Chen Mo wanted this number to keep going, holding a world championship every year.
In the e-sports field, no game company had managed to do this before. In the past, game developers and tournament organizers were often different companies, and few developers took it upon themselves to handle everything about hosting an e-sports competition.
Clearly, Chen Mo wanted to do what no one had done before.
Inside the venue on the tenth floor of Yuan Da Plaza, several groups of domestic gaming media reporters had already arrived. There were even one or two foreign reporters who had traveled thousands of miles to shoot videos and introduce the tournament’s details to overseas players—like the current state of the venue and the preparation status of each team.
For this tournament, players generally felt very excited. After all, it was a game made by a domestic company, hosted domestically, inviting so many international teams, and offering such a prestigious venue and a record-breaking prize pool. No matter how you looked at it, this was a feast, a celebration.
However, within the gaming industry, there were plenty of people predicting the tournament’s failure.
“Chen Mo is really overreaching this time. Isn’t he afraid of tripping? Suddenly boosting the e-sports prize pool to seven million dollars? Burning money out of boredom?”
“Yeah, one million dollars would already be enough to make these pro clubs fight tooth and nail. Seven million? He’s got too much money to spend!”
“E-sports is pure money-burning. Can he even recover the costs?”
“Recover costs? The prize pool alone is over forty million. Renting the venue costs over thirty million a year. How much can ticket sales bring in? Even with video broadcasting rights, it’s still far from enough!”
“I heard this venue is also going to host a league.”
“A league? How many people will watch a league? Tickets are selling fast now because it’s a once-a-year championship, and the first one at that—it’s a big gimmick. A league runs all year long, viewership will definitely drop, and ticket prices will have to come down. I really don’t think he can break even!”
“I can’t figure it out either. If it’s about burning money for promotion, League of Legends is already dominating the entire PC market. Aside from a few old-school MMOs barely hanging on, other PC games are getting squeezed out. With a game this hot, what more can promotion do? Fly to the sky?”
“Yeah, logically, he should be in the phase of lying back and raking in money. With League of Legends’ popularity, even if Chen Mo didn’t host the tournament himself, others would be begging to do it. He wouldn’t need to worry at all.”
“Maybe he’s just too ambitious. But I think he’s too optimistic. In the current domestic environment, e-sports tournaments are hard to sustain long-term.”
“It’d be great if it fails. Maybe it’ll drag Chen Mo down.”
“Well, after this tournament ends, we’ll see the hype level.”
…
Clearly, for the vast majority of domestic game developers, it was hard to understand Chen Mo’s very forward-thinking ideas, let alone foresee how popular e-sports would become in the future.
In October, everyone’s eyes were fixed on the League of Legends Season 1 World Championship. Whether it would be a feast or a farce would only be known when the tournament began.
…
October 5th, the day of the League of Legends Season 1 World Championship.
Many players had already arrived early at Yuan Da Plaza, ready to enter.
Jia Peng, Chang Xiuya, Li Jingsi, Lin Xue, Su Jinyu, Zou Zhuo, Zheng Hongxi, and others arrived at the entrance passage to the venue. Qian Kun was already waiting.
These people’s tickets were all given by Chen Mo, all front-row seats.
However, aside from Qian Kun, who had arrived early, everyone else was seeing the championship venue for the first time, so everything felt very fresh.
At the entrance of the venue stood a three-meter-tall statue of Katarina. Many spectators were taking photos and selfies next to it.