An MMO community manager personally reshared a clickbait marketing post to throw shade at a rival — only for players to discover that same account had also promoted their own game. This level of self-own might just be the most absurd L in the Chinese MMO scene of 2024.
Let's rewind to the root cause: JX3's (剑网三) 9th Master Tournament was a full-blown disaster. Players showed up late, referees mixed up the red and blue teams, and some competitors dropped out citing 'health reasons' at the last minute. But what really set the community on fire was the tournament's betting mechanic — players had to spend real-money premium currency to buy guess tickets, with refunds only if they guessed correctly. Many called this outright scam-tier, and the controversy even trended on Weibo with fraud accusations.
Things escalated so badly that even JX3's producer Guo Weiwei (郭炜炜) had to step in and address the situation. As one player put it, 'The fact that they scared even Fatty Guo into showing up tells you everything about how bad this was.' On top of that, netizens dug up dirt on a tournament organizer nicknamed 'Lei Jun's son-in-law' (雷军赘婿), whose allegedly problematic Weibo posts — including inappropriate images — led him to lock down his account to followers-only with a 6-month visibility limit.
With their own tournament in flames, JX3 officials pulled a classic deflection move: they pointed the finger at rival game 逆水寒手游 (Naraka Mobile by NetEase), insinuating that NetEase was the one orchestrating the backlash. Community manager Xianyu (咸鱼, lit. 'Salted Fish') doubled down by resharing a marketing account's post, seemingly confirming that 'the competitor is behind this.'
But this narrative collapsed in less than half a day. Players traced the marketing account and found it was nothing but a multi-game clickbait farm — alongside 逆水寒 content, the exact same account had posted about Genshin Impact and even JX3 itself. It was an equal-opportunity clout chaser, not a NetEase psyop.
One commenter nailed it: 'That account JX3 screenshotted also posted about Genshin and JX3 itself — it just follows whatever's trending. Honestly, NetEase is probably laughing their heads off right now. Free publicity AND the moral high ground.'
That said, 逆水寒手游 is far from innocent. Multiple commenters brought up the infamous Lotus Tower (莲花楼) incident, where NetEase mass-banned thousands of players from their official Weibo and super-topic, then had the audacity to label their own players as 'competitor shills' (友商). One user quipped: 'LOL, I wonder if 逆水寒's team ever imagined this day would come when they were calling their own players corporate spies — now they're dealing with an actual competitor. Anyway, fight! Fight!'
The drama also unearthed more JX3 skeletons. Players pointed out that JX3's official promotions had used slogans like 'Swords unite, sweep away the pig evil' (猪邪 being a derogatory pun on NetEase's nickname 猪场/'Pig Farm'). When asked if the mobile version still charges subscription fees, JX3 replied, 'Because we only want high-quality players, unlike certain competitors' — a statement that turned many neutral observers against them.
Some players reflected on the broader MMO ecosystem: 'The companies are screaming and thrashing while players watch the show and eat melon seeds — whoever serves better, that's where you go. At least it's not like certain games where companies collude to run digital livestock farms (赛博畜牧业, a term for games that treat players like farm animals to be herded).' Others simply called both sides 'a matched pair of disasters' (卧龙凤雏).
The drama continues to simmer. JX3's tournament mess remains unresolved, while 逆水寒手游's reputation keeps sinking with every new blunder. Two officials, each more unhinged than the other — the only casualties being the players' blood pressure.
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