Douyu’s “gambling scandal” has finally come to an end.
A large number of Douyu anchors have stopped broadcasting because of "gambling", and the once famous anchors have also stopped broadcasting to avoid the limelight.
, this "old platform" that has dominated the live broadcasting industry for several years has finally been revealed.
Live broadcast involves gambling and pornography... Douyu, which quietly faded out of people's sight, has long since lived a different life.
The person who paid for all this was CEO Chen Shaojie who had "disappeared" for more than half a month.
On November 21, Chengdu police arrested Chen Shaojie on suspicion of opening a casino.
A generation of Internet legends has sadly exited the scene.
Following Chen Shaojie’s death, Douyu’s stock price fell off a cliff. From more than 22 billion yuan when it was listed, it fell by 90%, and 20 billion yuan was evaporated.
In many people’s minds, CEO Chen Shaojie is the proud young man who brought Douyu to ring the bell on Nasdaq.
In 2020, he was once listed on the "Hurun Rich List". From an Internet-addicted boy who dropped out of school to a young CEO worth billions, Chen Shaojie's first half of his life was an inspirational model.
But a few years later, Chen Shaojie not only retired in despair, but also took several anchors with him.
In just a few years, what did Chen Shaojie do with Douyu?
A "bad CEO" who grew up in an Internet cafe
made his fortune by playing tricks on otakus
For a long time, Douyu has been the home base of domestic gamers.
The person at the helm of Douyu is naturally the person who understands Chinese gamers best.
As for why Chen Shaojie “understands” so much? He himself is one of these players.
is different from other big guys’ "Qingbei base" configuration. Chen Shaojie is a standard Internet addicted boy.
Ever since he opened an Internet cafe in his hometown, Chen Shaojie has been spending time in it day and night.
It is impossible to study hard. After the college entrance examination, Chen Shaojie reluctantly entered an ordinary university.
After studying for a year and finding it boring, Chen Shaojie boldly chose to drop out of school and engage in his favorite career: gaming.
Chen Shaojie did not shy away from the fact that he did not have an excellent academic background. Later, he often compared himself with Liu Guanzhang: "As each grew up, they both became the best generals."
In 2006, he and Zhang Wenming, another founder of Douyu, created the first game battle platform in his life: the leader of . The head of
was quickly spotted by the game giant Shanda Network, so Shanda Network directly "accommodated" this game and Chen Shaojie's brothers. Chen Shaojie not only made the first pot of gold, but also became a member of Shanda Network manager.
Chen Shaojie’s first big gamble in his life ended in success.
Chen Shaojie, who became the manager of Shanda, was a little unwilling to rely on others, so he had the idea of starting a business.
At this time, a video website with the theme of niche Japanese animation caught Chen Shaojie's attention.
Sensing a business opportunity, Chen Shaojie, together with Shanda Network's boss Pan Enlin, bought this website called AC Fun and became the new head.
As soon as he arrived at Station A, Chen Shaojie did two things:
. Introduced a barrage system that imitated the Japanese Niconico website, making it fully Niconico-oriented;
. He opened a game live broadcast section "Shengbangshuang" within Station A to carry out game live broadcast business;
Internet live broadcasts were not uncommon at that time, but live broadcasts of games were rare.
A station quickly gained a large number of fans with its high-quality game content, barrage function and deep cultivation in the animation field.
At that time, Station B was just a follower of Station A, and Aiyouteng did not make any efforts towards online drama series or variety shows.
A site is "far ahead" and has become the favorite website for otakus.
’s second big gamble truly brought Chen Shaojie to the forefront of the Internet.
It can be said that the current popularity of Bilibili and the popularity of barrage mode are all due to the contribution of this "gambler".
As station A grows and develops, the number of users of "生发发" is also increasing.
In 2014, Du Shaojie wanted to take a gamble again. He decided to separate "Shengbangshuang" as a separate business operation.
Chen Shaojie named the platform "Douyu TV". The word "Douyu" comes from the Thai fighting fish culture, which means that if two male fish fight, one of them will die.
Douyu insiders once commented that Chen Shaojie is "adventurous and licks blood", but behind this character is Chen Shaojie's "gambling" character as always.
When he smells an opportunity, the "gambler" Chen Shaojie will immediately reveal his fierce side.
"Kill" Wang Sicong with just one ruthless word
The Internet arena from 2014 to 2016 was a competition for game live streaming platforms.
In addition to Douyu TV, various majors "arranged" to launch it almost in the same year:
YY's game live broadcast business was also independent and renamed Huya Live; Zhanqi TV was also born in the same year;
5, the most high-profile second-generation rich Wang Sicong entered the game and founded Panda TV; at the same time, the platform "Longzhu Live" was announced;
By 2016, with the entry of major companies such as NetEase CC and Penguin Esports, there were already more than 200 game live broadcast service platforms on the entire network, which were The platform competition known as "Thousand Broadcast Wars" has officially entered its heyday.
As the leader in the game live broadcast industry, Douyu naturally has to be 120% ready to face this "war".
In 2016, Chen Shaojie led Douyu to complete Series C financing, with a total amount of about 1.5 billion yuan.
An excited Chen Shaojie posted a message on WeChat: Ammunition is sufficient and bullets are loaded. Douyu friends, with your gun in hand, follow me. We must win this thousand broadcast war, fight!
Chen Shaojie, who had enough ammunition, mainly used two ruthless tactics to win the "Thousand Broadcast War":
The first trick is: seizing the copyright to gain the upper hand
In 2016, Douyu received investment from Tencent, and in the game At a time when live broadcast copyrights are becoming increasingly clear, Douyu took advantage of the convenience of investment to obtain the live broadcast rights of three games from Tencent: "Honor of Kings", "League of Legends" and "Dungeon Fighter". Needless to say, the influence of these three games
among domestic players. Winning these three games is equivalent to controlling most of the Chinese game players.
Compared with other platforms, Douyu was the first to embrace Tencent's lap, and its confidence naturally became stronger.
Of course, having the rights to live game broadcasts is not enough. Douyu must also seize its real resources: game anchors.
Douyu’s second trick is to seize the anchor at any cost.
Just like current live broadcasts, the core resources in the game live broadcast industry are anchors with fan base. Wherever the anchors are, there are fans and traffic.
In order to snatch anchor resources, Douyu is not stingy at all in spending money:
signed a contract with "Chicken Eating" anchor Lan Zhanfei, spending 150 million; the head anchor Feng Timo can get 50 million per year in Douyu of maximum salary.
It is said that the signing value of these top anchors can increase several times overnight. The total worth of the top ten anchors in the industry exceeds 250 million yuan.
It is common for the anchors PDD
platforms signed by Douyu to poach each other, and eventually sue each other. In 2017, Douyu poached Huya anchor Hishi and was directly fined 49.7 million yuan after being sued by Huya.
Chen Shaojie is not only fond of gambling, but after discovering signs of "win", he is also really ruthless.
No matter how high the price is for the anchor, or whether poaching people violates the law, as long as he can achieve his goal, Chen Shaojie will never give up.
Under the continuous "money offensive", Douyu finally gained a firm foothold in the Qianbo war.
In 2017, hundreds of small live broadcast platforms closed down due to the country’s tightened supervision of the live broadcast industry.
By 2018, there had been more than 200 live broadcast platforms, big and small, and only a few, including Douyu and Huya, were left. Wang Sicong’s Panda Live also received news of wage arrears and bankruptcy.
In the end, Douyu and Huya “captured” 70% of the game live broadcast market share and 60% of the number of anchors on the market.
The two are just like KFC vs McDonald's, becoming the only two remaining giants after this thousand-broadcast war.
And Douyu has 160 million active users in a single quarter and annual revenue of 7.283 billion, stabilizing Huya and becoming the real game live broadcast brother.
In July 2019, Chen Shaojie led Douyu Live to be listed on the NASDAQ in the United States as a winner.
The proud Chen Shaojie also declared: "The listing is Douyu's highlight moment, but it is not Douyu's peak moment."
But no one could have imagined that this might be Chen Shaojie's last "highlight moment."
I bet on the wrong era,
Chen Shaojie can only bear the blame himself.
While Chen Shaojie was busy with the "Thousand Broadcast War", the Internet world had already quietly changed.
Bilibili, Chen Shaojie’s former “little brother”, completed a counterattack and even squeezed out Station A; Kuaishou and Douyin also took the short video model by storm across the country and quickly attracted users.
Game live streaming is gradually declining in popularity, and is slowly being pushed into a corner by a more diverse and broader content ecology.
Chen Shaojie is not completely unaware that the trend is changing. He has also led Douyu to make different content attempts.
For example, Douyu once broadcast live behind the scenes of Wang Baoqiang's "Havoc in Tianzhu"; it also once broadcast live broadcast of Vanke's shareholders' meeting.
Later, Douyu and Ma Dong jointly produced a variety show called "The Temptation of Dinner".
However, in an era when game live broadcasts are in the spotlight, Douyu’s “side business” is not outstanding in terms of data and influence, and these several attempts have failed to break the circle.
Chen Shaojie, who has always been a gambler, naturally chose not to bet again when faced with this tepid content direction.
The turning point occurred in 2020. That year, Chen Shaojie entered the "Hurun Rich List" with 5.5 billion personal assets. However, the wealthy boss Chen could not stop his top anchors from leaving.
Feng Timo, the top anchor of Douyu, moved to Station B. Xuxu Baobao, the top anchor of "Dungeon and Fighter", also switched to Douyin, and a large number of users also left Douyu.
At this time, under the leadership of Tencent, Douyu and Huya planned to merge, but in the end due to antitrust and other reasons, the merger fell through, and Douyu still had to face the dilemma on its own.
Misfortunes never come singly. In 2021, Chen Shaojie’s original partner Zhang Wenming chose to resign, and Douyu’s founding team began to split.
Douyu’s active users are also gradually losing. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Douyu still had 62.4 million monthly active users. By the fourth quarter of 2022, there were only 57.4 million left.
Douyu’s revenue has also declined for six consecutive quarters. After 2020, Douyu’s net profit also turned from profit to loss.
Facing internal and external troubles, Chen Shaojie had no choice but to find ways to increase the activity and turnover of the live broadcast room.
But he bet on the last thing he should bet on: gambling and marginal content.
Before Chen Shaojie "disappeared", some people discovered that the Douyu platform was gradually becoming "weird".
html After 111 o'clock, the style of painting in Douyu's live broadcast room began to change. Not only did there become more and more colorful anchors, there were also a large number of "gambling" anchors wearing "outdoor" appearances.
Douyu live broadcast room adopts the "lottery rebate" model to gamble quietly.
actually means that users give rewards in the live broadcast room. After reaching a certain amount, the anchor will draw rewards and rebate them.
In addition, the anchor can also use the origin of the game to open "handicap" operations. The number of tricks is amazing.
As early as 2020, a user lost 1.4 million because of gambling on Douyu, and he sued Douyu to court in anger. The case of
was eventually settled because Douyu compensated the user 120,000 yuan.
Gambling anchors can indeed bring a lot of revenue to Douyu. According to statistics, in 2020 alone, the income of the anchor 彡彡九屋 will exceed 100 million yuan; another gambling anchor, Changsha Village Death Squadron, has a revenue of up to 177 million yuan. Yuan.
Chen Shaojie also "likes to gamble" when he succeeds, and he also "likes to gamble" when he loses.
got closer and closer to the edge of the law when he decided to turn a blind eye to illegal content.
He single-handedly turned Douyu into a big "casino". As the banker, he must be responsible for all this.
Conclusion:
Rather than saying that Chen Shaojie has "good luck in gambling", it is better to say that he can step on the stroke every time.
From the initial game platform to the introduction of the Niconico model in Station A, to leading Douyu to win the "Thousands of Broadcasts War", veteran Internet worm Chen Shaojie has always been able to accurately discover the hottest trends and enter the game decisively.
Chen Shaojie’s failure also stemmed from being obsessed with the victory of the “Thousand Broadcast War” and ignoring the rapid iteration of the Internet.
If you don’t respect the trend, the trend will abandon you.
Wang Sicong, Chen Shaojie’s old rival, was also rumored today to have “turned back” and abandoned the Internet industry to devote himself to traditional cultural tourism projects.
missed the trend, and the second generation of rich people who were once the craziest had to restrain themselves.
"Gamble" does not exist, only stepping on the wind or being abandoned by the times.
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