Liang Qingfan was taken aback for a moment.

Who buys a house specifically choosing one with no appreciation potential?

Could it be...

That President Pei actually meant to buy a popular property in the city center?

Popular properties were being speculated on, resulting in very high prices, so their appreciation space was relatively small. Saying they had low appreciation potential seemed to make sense.

Liang Qingfan instantly understood and hurriedly nodded. "No problem, President Pei!"

He had obviously noticed that President Pei's attitude towards "buying buildings" had changed drastically.

Before, he was wholeheartedly picking up trash: buying buildings with bad layouts, remote locations, and commercial-residential properties.

But now, he wanted to buy buildings with little appreciation potential, which were some popular properties in the city center.

Why was that?

Combining it with the Sloth Apartments 2.0 model, Liang Qingfan guessed that this should be a strategic transformation.

In the beginning, picking up trash was mainly to highlight the core concept of Sloth Apartments.

For example, in the promotional video for Sloth Apartments, the two buildings in Binhu Community were completely transformed from unwanted trash buildings into extremely livable places, which was a very topical issue and attracted a lot of attention.

And now, Sloth Apartments had already gained attention, so it needed to continue to move upward and establish a higher brand value.

Therefore, Liang Qingfan fully supported President Pei's idea.

Seeing the expression on Liang Qingfan's face that said, "Great minds think alike," Pei Qian suddenly felt a pang of guilt for no reason.

But after thinking about it, continuing to pick up trash wouldn't work either. If the value skyrocketed at that point, he would be screwed during settlement.

Weighing the lesser of two evils, Pei Qian thought for a long time and decided to stick to his current plan.

He would try the Sloth Apartments 2.0 model first. If it didn't work, he would think of other solutions.

...

...

October 21st, Friday.

Beijing, Cherry Studio.

"Quick, quick, everyone tidy up your workstations quickly, don't leave a bad impression on people."

A young man, looking less than thirty years old, tall and thin, tidied up his messy workstation piled high with books, while beckoning to the other three people sitting beside him.

The other three looked even younger than him. One boy had a buzz cut and looked a bit simple-minded, another boy was a little chubby, and there was also a girl with glasses and a single ponytail.

In Beijing, there were many such small independent game studios.

Three or four people, casually finding an incubation space to work in, could develop an independent game.

The tall and thin young man was the boss and producer of Cherry Studio, named Jiang Fan.

The boy who looked a little simple-minded was called Yang Liang, and he was the game's main designer. The chubby boy and the girl with the single ponytail were the game's numerical designer and art director, respectively.

Moreover, everyone was actually also serving as a function designer, and everyone could use the game editor to make games.

The girl was the art director, but she only drew very few art resources herself. Most of the time, she was communicating with people on the resource website, making requests, and accepting art resources.

Such a small team of four people was the standard team for independent game studios in China.

If there were fewer people, the development cycle would be longer, and it would be difficult to guarantee the quality of the games produced. It would be purely luck; but if there were more people, they might not be able to afford it.

They were all making independent games, so funding was definitely tight, and every penny had to be split in half.

Developing an independent game, even with the official editor and official platform connecting them to find art, still had costs.

Rent had to be paid, salaries had to be paid, and art resources had to be bought.

Although the official platform had various preferential policies for independent game developers, if the game didn't sell, any preferential policies were useless, and all investment would be lost.

The main designer, Yang Liang, who looked a bit simple-minded, tidied up somewhat reluctantly: "Brother Fan, why don't we just not tidy up? I don't think it's useful. Several investors came before and asked this and that, but after asking for a long time, no one was really willing to invest in us and take this risk."

"After all, the probability of failure for independent games is too high, so they're unwilling to invest."

"With this time, it's better to fix two more bugs."

Jiang Fan was also a little helpless: "There's no way around it, Liangzi. The studio's financial situation is too bad now. If no one helps us, we can only last for another month or so at most. By then, we won't even be able to pay salaries. I can't let you all work for love. Let's try again."

"I asked a few friends in the industry to verify it, and the Qiu Zong who's coming today is indeed a somewhat famous figure in the industry, and he has indeed contacted several game companies. Although he hasn't invested in any of them, it at least shows that he has this idea."

Yang Liang continued to tidy up: "Really? Then Brother Fan, do you think we have a chance to get investment?"

Jiang Fan shook his head: "This, I can't say for sure."

"This Qiu Zong used to make氪金 (kè jīn) games (pay-to-win games), but for some reason, he suddenly started frequently contacting domestic single-player game companies from last week, especially independent game studios like us. From what I know, he's already talked to three in Beijing."

"It is said that he seems to be specifically investing in domestic single-player games and independent games. For us, the probability of being invested in is already much higher than other investment companies."

"However, the three companies I heard about all failed to get investment."

"It's understandable that the first two didn't get investment. They seemed too unreliable, but the third one was very reliable. The game's framework was already done, and the game content was also good. They were just waiting to work hard and release it at the end, but Qiu Zong didn't invest either."

"I'm not quite sure what his standards are."

"But no matter what, this is a good opportunity for us, so let's try to seize it."

The four people in the studio hurried to tidy up their workstations a little, waiting for this Qiu Zong's arrival.

Jiang Fan looked anxiously at the time on his phone.

Two minutes before 2:00 PM, Jiang Fan's phone rang.

Jiang Fan hurriedly answered it: "Qiu Zong, have you arrived? Wait a moment, I'll go downstairs to pick you up right away!"

Before leaving, Jiang Fan gave everyone a wink. Everyone immediately sat up straight at their workstations and started working seriously, waiting for Qiu Zong's arrival.

A few minutes later, Jiang Fan led Qiu Hong to the Cherry Studio's office area.

Since accepting the "Qiong Tu (Desperate Path) Plan" mission from President Pei, Qiu Hong had simply settled his personal affairs and immediately came to Beijing without stopping.

Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou were all cities where game companies were heavily concentrated, so Qiu Hong chose Beijing as his first stop.

Although Qiu Hong's mission was to invest in single-player game companies and independent game studios across the country, he didn't need to fly between cities every day.

Staying in Beijing for a month, inspecting one company every day, and then switching to the next city after most of the companies in Beijing had been screened was the most efficient method.

Qiu Hong had already visited five companies before, but he had only invested in one.

Because three of the companies looked like very unreliable small workshops at first glance. The bosses themselves didn't understand games very well, and they seemed to be laymen guiding laymen. Moreover, Qiu Hong felt that they had a tendency to scam investors' money.

President Pei said that unreliable companies definitely couldn't be invested in.

One company was good in all aspects, and the game was very complete. Qiu Hong tried playing it and felt that the probability of success was very high.

But President Pei also said that companies that were too reliable couldn't be invested in either.

Therefore, only one mediocre company received Qiu Hong's "Qiong Tu (Desperate Path) Plan" investment.

Actually, his job was the easiest and least stressful. When he was a game producer before, he had to rack his brains to think about game gameplay, fearing that making one wrong decision would ruin the entire project, but now he didn't need to. He just needed to look at the company's situation and decide whether to invest money.

Moreover, the bonuses he was getting now had nothing to do with whether the investment was profitable. The more he invested, the more bonuses he got. Where could he find such a good thing?

Without pressure, he wouldn't suffer from gains and losses, and he would be more rational and clear-headed when making decisions.

Jiang Fan moved a chair for Qiu Hong from the side, and then took a glass of hot water from the water dispenser next to him. Then, he began to introduce the basic situation of Cherry Studio.

Qiu Hong listened silently while drinking water.

According to Jiang Fan, the establishment of Cherry Studio was basically a standard story of "generating electricity with love."

Jiang Fan originally worked in a law firm, and his major had absolutely nothing to do with games. He started making games simply because the existence of the official platform and editor greatly reduced the threshold for game production, giving him the idea of trying to make a game in his spare time.

Jiang Fan usually worked very slowly, and could only spare one hour a day to use the official editor to make games.

In this way, he spent two whole years making a text adventure game with the theme of lawyer defense by himself. As a result, it was unexpectedly well received after it went online.

Although sales were not very high, independent games did not have too many costs after all. Sales of nearly 200,000 copies at five yuan each, plus the various preferential policies of the official platform for independent games, earned more than 600,000 yuan.

So, Jiang Fan made a very important decision in his life, gave up his job as a lawyer, and decided to establish Cherry Studio to make independent games full-time.

The other three employees were also found by Jiang Fan from his player group after simple communication and interviews. These three also voluntarily gave up their previous jobs and came to Cherry Studio to receive salaries that could only guarantee basic living expenses.

It wasn't that Jiang Fan was stingy, but the key was that there was only this much, 600,000 yuan or so. He also had to bear the rent of the office space and the money to buy art resources, so there was really no way to take out more money to pay salaries.

The game currently being developed was called "The Survival Handbook for Office Workers," and its size was much larger than the game Jiang Fan had developed before. But precisely because the game's size exceeded Jiang Fan's control ability, Cherry Studio was running out of money.

In another month or so, they might not even be able to pay salaries, and the game had not yet reached a point where it could be launched at all.