Early February, Tianba Community.
After a lengthy investigation and evidence collection, Tianba Studio officially released a statement in the community titled "Regarding Certain Professional GAL Players and Club Staff Involved in Match-Fixing".
The statement mentioned that after investigating, it was confirmed that 7 players and staff were involved in match-fixing. Among them, three staff members have been handed over to the relevant authorities due to the severity of their cases.
The remaining four players will face a permanent ban from competitions...
Let’s not talk about the three staff members for now.
Among these four players, one player is quite special. Although he has been banned, he has not been completely ostracized by Tianba Studio. He is still allowed to stream and commentate on "Star Emperor" matches.
This is his "reward".
If he hadn’t voluntarily reported, Chen Ba might not have caught the others involved. This acts as a form of merit-based redemption, sparing him from a complete dead end.
The match-fixing issue has been addressed.
Although not completely eradicated, with this lesson and deterrence in a short period, the competition environment will be much cleaner.
However, besides match-fixing, another issue needs urgent resolution.
Broadcast rights!
Previously, the GAL League offered free broadcast rights to expand its influence.
But as the competition became more popular and viewer numbers increased, it’s no longer feasible to offer them for free. The broadcast rights must be sold.
Domestically, it’s Thunderbolt.
Although Thunderbolt’s live streaming influence is less than Tiger Fish, they have the funds, unlike Shark Fight, which is financially struggling and can’t afford to buy broadcast rights.
Internationally, it’s still Twitch.
Notably, besides these two platforms, live matches of the GAL League can also be viewed via the game’s client, Tianba Official Website, and Tianba Community APP.
However, the experience is much worse...
Especially the Tianba Community APP, where watching a live stream feels like a PowerPoint presentation, with extremely unstable signals and unsynchronized audio and visuals.
"The APP needs an upgrade."
Chen Ba sighed.
When this APP was initially developed, not much money was spent. It was outsourced casually, mainly for the convenience of players to browse the community forum anytime, anywhere.
As time passed, the Tianba Community APP indeed needs an upgrade.
Again, this will be outsourced.
It’s not that no one in the studio can do it; it’s just that everyone is too busy. Even without the development work of "Love Advisor Department," time would still be needed to port the mobile version of "Divine Grace Continent."
That’s right!
"Divine Grace Continent" is being released on mobile.
Compared to the console and PC versions, the mobile version has undoubtedly been streamlined significantly, with no so-called professional edition.
Of course, the core gameplay remains.
In the mobile version of "Divine Grace Continent," you can also lock the perspective on NPCs and watch like an anime series.
However, the mobile edition is quite limited, originally having tens of thousands of NPCs reduced to just over a thousand, cutting 90% at once.
Moreover, these NPCs are distributed across different maps, with up to a few dozen on any single map.
"Why is that?"
Some players raised doubts, feeling the NPC count in the mobile version is too low. Who would like a 90% cut?
Chen Ba also explained this.
The mobile platform cannot handle so many NPCs appearing in the same scene. Take the capital city, for example; there are over a thousand NPCs in the PC version living there.
In such a scenario, even a slightly weaker CPU on a PC would struggle, causing the game to lag.
Ported to a mobile platform, without reducing the number of NPCs, the phone’s CPU would cause severe lag.
Walking would become difficult!
Undoubtedly, this is the most reasonable way to port it. Without reducing the NPC count, it’s tough for the mobile version to run "Divine Grace Continent" smoothly.
However, speaking of which...
The mobile version being cut down so much means it’s naturally much cheaper, unlike the PC or console price.
The mobile version is only 12 yuan.
Compared to the PC version’s 68 yuan, even with discounts, it’s a significant price reduction.
This also resulted in good sales for the mobile version, selling nearly 50,000 copies in the iOS store. It’s hard to track the numbers for Android, but they are about the same.
"Something’s wrong, Ba!"
Just as Chen Ba was calculating the potential earnings from the mobile version for the studio, Zhong Shengwei rushed over to report an urgent situation.
The studio has been hacked!
To be precise, the studio’s computers were hacked, risking the leak of some confidential files.
"Hacker invasion?"
Hearing this term for the first time, Chen Ba was astonished: "Really? Where did the hacker come from, and why are they targeting us?"
"No idea!"
Zhong Shengwei said, annoyed: "The opponent’s technology is too advanced, vanishing without a trace, and we can’t track their whereabouts..."
That’s expected.
The people at Tianba Studio may be good at game development, but defending against hackers is beyond their capabilities.
Moreover, they never anticipated a hacker invasion and had no prior defenses, so it was only natural they got caught.
By the time Chen Ba received the news, the hacker had already stopped their attack and disappeared.
"The files were leaked."
Lu said gloomily: "The damn hacker even formatted my E drive before leaving."
"What did you have on your E drive?"
Seeing Lu so disheartened, Chen Ba furrowed his brows and said, "Hurry up and think, did you store any important files in there?"
"No important data, just many Steam games and subscription wallpapers from the Red Car,"
Chen Ba: "..."
Too lazy to deal with this guy, he turned and asked Zhong Shengwei, "What about the other computers? Did they have similar issues?"