February 2nd, Saturday …
For Gao Ming of the Home Corporation, this was destined to be another 996 weekend.
"Sigh, I'm too aggrieved as the director of the marketing department!"
"These problems are not something I can solve at all. What's more, using the marketing department as the public relations department and the public relations department as the floor cleansing department. Who would do that!"
Gao Ming was in his office. There was no one around, so he could not help but complain.
Recently, his work had not been going well.
When he first became the director of the marketing department of the Home Corporation, he had been complacent and smooth sailing.
To be the marketing director of a listed company, even in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, he would be considered an ordinary person, right?
Of course, he knew that he was a high-level employee, but how many people in this world were not employees?
What's more, he was a high-level employee. He had shares and a high salary. He was much more comfortable than the bosses of small companies.
However … when did the situation start to change?
Gao Ming recalled. If he were to trace the source, it seemed to be when Tengda founded the Sloth Apartments brand.
In the beginning, Gao Ming and the upper echelons of the Home Corporation did not care at all because this business model did not work at a glance.
However, later on, there was the formaldehyde housing incident and then the Real Estate Agent Simulator. Public relations crises after public relations crises caused the Home Corporation's stock price to plummet. There was a lot of criticism online, and all the upper echelons were in a terrible state.
In fact, the upper echelons of the Home Corporation were also very puzzled.
The Home Corporation had developed step by step from the initial small company using this strategy.
Now that the company had grown stronger, its market share was very high, and it was also listed, the same strategy should be more effective. Why did it suddenly not work?
At the end of November, the Real Estate Agent Simulator was released. Immediately after, Young Master Tian released a video. Chi Xing Workspace announced that it would cooperate with Sloth Apartments and Shenhua Real Estate to set up a reality service department. They would use the game as a carrier to build a new rental platform. Then, Sloth Apartments also started to rent in lieu of buying and began to enter a stage of rapid expansion …
As for the Home Group, it was a little like when it rained, it rained overnight.
Not only had the stock price plummeted, but more importantly, the two major new businesses, "Safe House" and "Intimate Butler", had been dealt a heavy blow. So many resources had been invested, but in the end, there were only negative effects!
For such a heavyweight core business, it was not something that could be easily done with publicity. To a certain extent, it would affect the entire company's organizational structure, personnel training, business direction, and many other aspects. Once the business was crippled, it was easy to hurt the company.
Only the Home Group could withstand it. If it were other small companies, they would have been finished long ago.
As the director of the marketing department, Gao Ming had been attending many meetings and working overtime during this period. However, they could only watch helplessly as the popularity of the real estate agent simulator increased and the number of housing sources increased. The business of Shenhua Real Estate and Sloth Apartments also expanded rapidly to first-tier cities, but they were helpless.
Did you even try to resist? Of course, there were.
For example, he could mobilize all the agents in the stores to compete with the 'Real Estate Agent Simulator', register an account to harass the real landlords, or pretend to be landlords to release information about housing, trying to trick tenants into coming over.
In the end … all of them were banned.
Even worse, even Doubt.
All VR glasses were banned.
Obviously, Slow Movement Studio had thought of this possibility a long time ago. They had recruited many people to set up the Reality Service Department. One of the most important tasks was to supervise the platform. If they discovered any false information, they had to delete it immediately and warn it.
Of course, how to verify false information was a technical job and also a physical job. Other than having the uploader provide sufficient rich and detailed information, users who reported false housing sources could also obtain good rewards to mobilize everyone's enthusiasm.
The Home Group was not the only one who wanted to ruin the real estate agent simulator. Other rental brands and even some small intermediaries were more active.
That was because they were the ones who suffered the most as layers of pressure fell on them!
After the integration of the real estate agent simulator, Shenhua Real Estate, and Sloth Apartments, they would definitely snatch a large amount of market share. These market shares were mainly high-end markets that were targeted at quality tenants with higher living conditions.
On the surface, it didn't seem to be a direct competition for some small rental brands and local intermediaries.
However, the problem was that once Sloth Apartments snatched the Home Group's market share and the Home Group's profits and market share would decrease, what would they do?
They could not beat Sloth Apartments, so they could only continue to sink and fight against those small intermediaries!
The Home Group was huge. Even if their business was affected to a certain extent, they could survive just by relying on their stores all over the country, a large number of intermediaries, and the housing sources in their hands. However, it was not necessarily the case for these small intermediaries. Once the Home Group decided to snatch food from them, they could only starve to death!
Therefore, it was unknown how many people were trying their best to mess up the Real Estate Agent Simulator.
They all felt that how could the Real Estate Agent Simulator do it if so many rental apps could not handle real housing sources?
Even though there were so many fake housing sources on these rental apps and many of them were deliberately condoned by the platform, it had to be said that it was indeed very difficult to supervise this area.
That was because releasing false information to fish was a low-cost and high-yield thing. Naturally, it could not be banned.
However, after they went to the Real Estate Agent Simulator and posted some false information, they realized that it was not the case at all! This thing was fundamentally different from ordinary rental apps!
It was a VR game that had to be bought!
Real Estate Agent Simulator might have released a game version that was independent from the computer and ran independently on the VR glasses in order to take care of the players. However, no matter how much it was reduced, there were still costs.
If one wanted to send false information or harass the landlord, one would first have to register a game account, bind their identity cards, and buy Real Estate Agent Simulator. This process was quite troublesome. Once the account was blocked, not only would the money spent be wasted, but the key was that one would have to find another identity card to register. Wouldn't that still take a lot of effort?
Wouldn't it be a huge loss to spend so much effort just to send false information or harass the landlord?
What was even more terrifying was that Doubt …
The VR glasses were also from Slow Movement Workspace. If they discovered that the account on a certain pair of glasses kept publishing false information or was frequently reported by high-quality players, it would trigger the ultimate sanction: Ban the machine!
The VR glasses had permanently disabled the connection function of "Real Estate Agent Simulator".
In this regard, Slow Movement Studio was rather merciful and did not directly let Doubt
They did not directly turn the VR glasses into bricks. However, this was already an unbearable cost for intermediaries who wanted to cause trouble.
After the glasses were banned, you could either keep it for yourself or sell it online at a low price. It was hard to say if anyone would sell it, but they would definitely be scolded.
With this combination of punches, be it the agency or the individual, they couldn't take it anymore.
The key was that the losses far exceeded the benefits. Were they trying to mess up Real Estate Agent Simulator or were they trying to increase the sales of Slow Movement Workspace's games and VR glasses?
What's more, other companies could not learn this method.
They would be courting death if they dared to let their rental app charge fees, such as putting down a deposit of dozens of yuan before they could play.
That was because even if Real Estate Agent Simulator was stripped of its platform attributes, it was still an outstanding VR game. Its quality could support this price. What's more, with Tengda's reputation as an endorsement and providing a platform for real information, players, tenants, and landlords would buy it.
Other companies did not have this condition at all.
Therefore, the Home Group had struggled with other agencies for a long time, but in the end, it was all in vain. Not only did it not cause much impact to the Real Estate Agent Simulator, but it had also accumulated a bunch of banned "Doubt" games in its hands.
They could not deal with them. They could only forcefully give them to the store employees as benefits.
What was even more outrageous was that some employees, after playing Real Estate Agent Simulator for work reasons, watched Mr. Tian's video, and suddenly regretted it. They realized the ruthless nature of the real estate agency. Their suppressed dissatisfaction exploded in an instant, and they resigned!
Many stores had experienced situations where the middlemen ran away, instantly creating a feeling of the setting sun over the mountains in the west.
It could be said that Real Estate Agent Simulator, Shenhua Real Estate, and Sloth Apartments had achieved the effect of reducing dimensions in various senses. Every move was difficult for traditional intermediary companies to predict. At the same time, it was impossible to deal with!
Last month, the first batch of housing units from Shenhua Real Estate and Sloth Apartments with Real Estate Agent Simulator had been released. They were instantly snatched up and rented out.
Shenhua Real Estate did not care about this bit of rent at all. They were doing brand effect, so the price and quality were very competitive.
As for Sloth Apartments, its scale had always been restricted by housing units. Now that long-term rentals were allowed, the number of housing units increased. The accumulated reputation and expectations of tenants were instantly realized, and naturally, it exploded in popularity.
Real Estate Agent Simulator highlighted these two types of high-quality housing sources, which attracted more and more people to rent houses in the game.
In short, it was hopeless.
After struggling for a long time, Home Corporation finally chose to lie flat.
This was a good thing for Gao Ming because it could finally not be tormented by endless meetings and overtime.
As for what Home Corporation would do in the future …
Who knew? I'm just a lowly worker.
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