Douyu's "gambling turmoil" finally came to an end.
Because of the "gambling" problem, many Douyu anchors have stopped broadcasting, and the once beautiful head anchors have also avoided the limelight.
Someone finally unveiled the true face of this "old platform" on the live broadcast rivers and lakes for many years, causing an uproar.
Betta has quietly withdrawn from the limelight, and this is because it has long since become unrecognizable when it comes to gambling and pornography.
The responsibility of paying the bill fell on CEO Chen Shaojie, who disappeared for more than half a month.
Chen Shaojie was arrested on November 21 by Chengdu police on suspicion of opening a casino.
An Internet legend ended his stage career in disgrace.
With Chen Shaojie's conviction, Douyu's share price fell sharply, from more than 22 billion yuan at the time of listing to 90%, and its market value evaporated by 20 billion.
In the impression of many people, CEO Chen Shaojie is the proud young man who rang the bell for betta fish on the NASDAQ.
In 2020, he was listed on the "Hurun Report", and the first half of his life as a young CEO has experienced the transformation from a teenager who dropped out of school due to Internet addiction to a successful person worth billions, which is a vivid inspirational example.
A few years passed in a flash, and Chen Shaojie not only fell into a deep predicament and withdrew from the stage, but also implicated several anchors.
Chen Shaojie spent a few years, what did he do on betta?
A "bad CEO" who grew up in an Internet café
Get rich by catering to otaku.
Betta has long been a major gathering place for domestic gamers.
Naturally, the leader of Betta is the one who knows Chinese gamers best.
Why is he so proficient?Because he's one of those players himself.
Chen Shaojie did not choose the configuration of "Qingbei Bottom" like other bigwigs, but a typical Internet addicted teenager.
Since Chen Shaojie opened an Internet café in his hometown, he has been staying inside all day and all night.
Chen Shaojie could only barely be admitted to an ordinary university after the college entrance examination, and he felt that he could no longer study well Xi.
After a year of studying, Chen Shaojie lost interest in studying Xi, so he boldly chose to drop out of school and start working on his favorite career - games.
Chen Shaojie doesn't mind that he doesn't have a solid academic background, but often uses Liu Guanzhang as his benchmark: "They all became the most outstanding generals in their respective growth processes."
He and Zhang Wenming, another founder of Douyu, jointly created the first game battle platform in their lives in 2006: Zhangmen.
Shanda Network quickly became interested in the game and Chen Shaojie, so it directly incorporated it into its umbrella and appointed Chen Shaojie as its manager. This allowed Chen Shaojie not only to earn a good income, but also to become a member of the Shanda network.
Chen Shaojie's first adventure in life ended with a happy ending.
After Chen Shaojie became the manager of Shanda, he was a little dissatisfied with the situation of relying on others, so he came up with the idea of starting a business.
What caught Chen Shaojie's attention was a niche Japanese anime-themed *** At this time, he noticed it.
Chen Shaojie smelled a business opportunity, and together with Pan Enlin, the boss of Shanda Network, they jointly bought the ** named AC Fun and became the new person in charge.
As soon as he arrived at Station A, Chen Shaojie immediately got busy, first ......, and then .......
A barrage system that mimics the Japanese Niconico** has been introduced, making the overall style closer to Niconico.
Station A has set up a game live broadcast area "live broadcasting" and launched a game live broadcast service.
At that time, although live streaming on the Internet was common, live streaming of games was rare.
With its high-quality game content, barrage function and deep cultivation in the animation field, Station A quickly attracted a large number of fans.
At that time, Station B was only a follower of Station A, and Aiyouteng did not make efforts in the field of ** dramas and variety shows.
has become the favorite ** of otaku, and station A has been "far ahead".
Chen Shaojie's second gamble made him really stand on the cusp of the Internet.
It can be said that the popularity of station B today and the popularity of the barrage mode are inseparable from the credit of this "gambler".
With the continuous development and growth of station A, the number of "live broadcasting" users is also gradually increasing.
Du Shaojie decided to make a gamble again in 2014, and he decided to operate "raw broadcasting" as an independent business.
The name "Betta TV" was chosen by Chen Shaojie, inspired by Thailand's betta culture, symbolizing that two male fish fight, and one of them will die in battle.
Chen Shaojie has always been evaluated by betta insiders as a "risk-loving, knife-licking blood" character, but behind this, his consistent "good betting" nature is hidden.
Once he smells an opportunity, Chen Shaojie, a "good gambler" person, will immediately show his ** side.
A ruthless word can crush Wang Sicong.
From 2014 to 2016, the Internet was regarded as an arena by game live streaming platforms.
All the gods have appeared on the live broadcast platform almost in the same year, except for Douyu TV.
YY's game live broadcast business independently established Huya Live and changed its name;At the same time, in the same year, Battle Flag TV was also born.
In 2015, the rich second-generation Wang Sicong joined hands to enter the game and founded Panda TV;At the same time, the "Dragon Ball Live" platform was also announced to be officially established;
With the addition of large companies such as NetEase CC and Penguin E-sports, by 2016, more than 200 game live broadcast service platforms have emerged on the whole network. This platform competition, known as the "Thousand Broadcast War", has officially entered its heyday.
As a leader in the game live broadcast industry, Douyu will inevitably devote itself to meet this "big war" in the best state.
In 2016, Chen Shaojie successfully led Douyu to complete the C round of financing, with a total amount of about 15 billion yuan.
Chen Shaojie excitedly posted a status in the circle of friends, declaring: The bullet has been loaded with magazines and is ready to be loaded. Fellow betta fish, hold on to your guns and move forward with me. We must win in this battle of thousands of broadcasts, come on!
The key to Chen Shaojie's success in the "Thousand Broadcast War" is mainly due to sufficient ammunition and two ruthless moves.
The first thing to do is to seize the copyright and take the lead.
In 2016, Douyu received investment from Tencent. In the context of the gradual clarification of the copyright of the game live broadcast, Douyu successfully obtained the copyright of the live broadcast of the three games "Honor of Kings", "League of Legends" and "Dungeons and Warriors" with the support of investment, thus opening a new stage of development.
The influence of these three games among Chinese gamers is undoubted, and once you master these three games, you will be able to grasp the hearts and minds of most Chinese gamers.
Douyu took the lead in cooperating with Tencent, and compared with other platforms, the confidence is naturally firmer.
Of course, just owning the game live broadcast rights is not enough to meet the needs of Douyu, they also need to compete for their real resource: game streamers.
Betta's other strategy is: don't hesitate to spend a lot of money to snatch the streamer.
As with the current live streaming situation, the key resources in the gaming live streaming world are streamers who have a stable fan base, and where the streamers are are where the fans and traffic are.
In order to compete for anchor resources, Douyu can be said to have invested a lot of money without hesitation.
The anchor Lan Zhan Fei spent 1500 million signed a contract for "Eating Chicken", and the head anchor Feng Timo can get an annual salary of 50 million in Douyu.
I heard that the contract value of these top anchors can increase several times in just one night, and the total value of the top ten anchors in the industry has exceeded 2500 million yuan.
PDD is the anchor signed by Douyu.
It's not uncommon for different platforms to poach each other and eventually sue each other. In 2017, when Douyu poached Huya's anchor Hi, Huya directly filed a lawsuit and successfully fined 49.7 million yuan.
Chen Shaojie is not only addicted to gambling, but once he finds signs of "winning", he also acts quite decisively.
Chen Shaojie will never give up, no matter how high the anchor's value rises, and no matter whether the poaching behavior violates the law, as long as the goal can be achieved.
With the constant influx of money, Betta finally gained a firm foothold in the Senbo War.
In 2017, hundreds of small livestreaming platforms went bankrupt due to the state's tighter regulation of the livestreaming industry.
Until 2018, there used to be more than 200 live broadcast platforms, but now only a few remain, such as Douyu and Huya. Wang Sicong's panda live broadcast also reported news of salary arrears and bankruptcy.
In the end, Douyu and Huya together accounted for 70% of the market share of game live broadcasts, as well as 60% of the number of streamers in the market.
In the aftermath of this thousand-broadcast war, the two giants, like KFC and McDonald's, became the only surviving competitors.
Betta fish with 1600 million single-quarter active users and 72With a revenue of 8.3 billion, Huya has steadily led Huya and become a real game live broadcast giant.
In July 2019, Chen Shaojie took Douyu Live to ring the bell on the NASDAQ in the United States as a winner.
Chen Shaojie said smugly: "The listing of Betta is a glorious moment, but it is not the peak moment of Betta. ”
However, no one could have predicted that this might be Chen Shaojie's last shining moment.
The choice of the times was wrong.
Chen Shaojie can only take responsibility for himself.
While Chen Shaojie was busy participating in the "Thousand Broadcast War", the Internet has quietly changed.
bilibili, who was once known as Chen Shaojie"Little brother"has successfully completed the counterattack, and even surpassed Station A;Kuaishou and Douyin also quickly swept the country with their short ** mode, attracting a large number of users.
The limelight of game live streaming is gradually gone, and it is gradually replaced by a more diversified and extensive content ecosystem.
Chen Shaojie is not unaware that the wind direction is changing, and he has tried to lead Betta to make different content attempts.
Douyu once live-streamed the behind-the-scenes of "Havoc in Tianzhu", and also live-streamed Vanke's shareholders' meeting.
Subsequently, Douyu also cooperated with Ma Dong to produce a variety show called "Dinner's **".
However, Douyu's "side hustle" has not achieved significant results in terms of data and influence, and these attempts have failed to cause a sensation in the era of game live streaming.
Chen Shaojie has always been a gambler, and of course he will not take any more risks with this kind of unattractive content direction.
In 2020, a turning point happened, in that year, Chen Shaojie successfully appeared on the "Hurun Report" with a personal asset value of 5.5 billion, however, even the wealthy Boss Chen could not prevent the departure of his top anchors.
Feng Timo, the top anchor of Douyu, has now moved to Station B. And the leading anchor of "Dungeons and Warriors", Xu Xu Baobao, also jumped to Douyin, followed by a large number of users who flowed out of Douyu.
At this moment, under the leadership of Tencent, Douyu and Huya planned to merge, but due to various reasons involving antitrust, the merger plan ultimately failed, and Douyu had to deal with the predicament alone.
In 2021, Chen Shaojie's original partner Zhang Wenming chose to resign, which led to the emergence of the founder team of Douyu, which can be described as a disaster.
The number of active users of Douyu has gradually decreased, from 62.4 million monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 57.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Douyu's revenue has shown a downward trend for six consecutive quarters, and after 2020, Douyu's net profit has also turned from a profit to a loss.
In the face of various problems at home and abroad, Chen Shaojie must strive to improve the activity and turnover of the live broadcast room.
However, he turned out to bet on what he was precious in the last place he should have bet: gambling and fringe activities.
Before Chen Shaojie's "disappearance", some people had already noticed that the Douyu platform began to gradually show some "bizarre" changes.
After 11 o'clock in the Douyu live broadcast room, the style of painting began to change, not only more edge anchors appeared, but also a large number of "gambling" anchors under the banner of "outdoor".
The live broadcast room of Douyu quietly adopted the "** rebate" model for gambling.
In fact, it means that the user rewards in the live broadcast room, and when a certain amount is reached, the anchor will give ** rebates.
Streamers can also open "markets" through games, which is a breathtaking variety of ways.
In early 2020, some users participated in gambling on the Douyu platform and unfortunately lost 1.4 million, and sued Douyu Company in anger to the court.
In the end, the case ended because Douyu compensated users with 120,000 yuan.
As a gambling anchor, he did bring a lot of turnover to Douyu. According to statistics, in 2020 alone, his income exceeded 1 billion yuan;And the gambling-related anchor Changsha Rural Death Squad has set a record of 17700 million yuan of flow.
Chen Shaojie is a person who likes to gamble, and he can't do without gambling whether he wins or loses.
Once he chooses to turn a blind eye to illegal content, he is gradually approaching the edge of the law.
He, as the dealer, single-handedly transformed the betta into a huge "casino", and must take responsibility for all this.
All in all: Chen Shaojie can step on the stroke every time, not so much "gambling luck", but rather "good luck".
Chen Shaojie, a veteran networm, started from the game platform, introduced the Niconico model to succeed in Station A, and also led Douyu to win the "Thousand Broadcast War", he can always accurately grasp the hottest trend of the moment and follow up decisively.
Chen's defeat stemmed from his obsession with the victory of the "Thousand Broadcasts" and his ignorance of the rapid evolution of the Internet.
If you ignore it, it will also forget you.
Wang Sicong, Chen Shaojie's old rival, is rumored to have announced today that he has decided to leave the Internet industry and will devote himself to traditional cultural tourism projects.
missed the opportunity, and the rich second generation, who was once the most presumptuous, was also forced to rein in a little.
The word "gambling" does not exist, and the real situation is that either you have stepped on the wind or have been abandoned by the times.
Douyu CEO Chen Shaojie was arrested by Chengdu**