Chapter 1445 Zhujia Group Chooses to Lie Flat

February 2nd, Saturday.

For Gao Ming of Zhujia Group, this was destined to be another 996 weekend (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week).

"Ugh, this Market Director position is so frustrating!"

"These problems are beyond my ability to solve. Besides, treating the Marketing Department as a Public Relations Department, and the Public Relations Department as a damage control department, that's just not how things should be done!"

Gao Ming grumbled in his office, alone and unheard.

His work had been going poorly lately.

When he first became the Marketing Director of Zhujia Group, he was full of pride and smooth sailing.

Being the Marketing Director of a listed company, even in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, was definitely something to be proud of, right?

Of course, he knew he was just a high-level wage earner, but who in this world wasn't a wage earner?

What's more, this high-level wage earner had stock options and a high salary, living much more comfortably than the bosses of some small companies.

But… when did things start to change?

Gao Ming recalled that if he had to trace it back to the source, it seemed to be when Tenda created the Sloth Apartment brand.

At first, Gao Ming and the senior management of Zhujia Group didn't care at all, because the business model seemed doomed to fail.

But later, first the formaldehyde-filled apartments incident, and then *Real Estate Agent Simulator*, one public relations crisis after another caused Zhujia Group's stock price to plummet, and the internet was full of criticism. All the senior executives were overwhelmed.

In fact, the senior executives of Zhujia Group were also very puzzled.

Zhujia Group had grown from that small company step by step, using this very approach.

Now that the company had grown, had a high market share, and was listed, the same approach should be even more effective. But why was it suddenly not working?

At the end of November, *Real Estate Agent Simulator* was released. Then, Young Master Tian released a video. Chixing Studio announced its cooperation with Sloth Apartment and Shenhua Real Estate to establish a real-world service department, building a new rental platform using the game as a medium. Then, Sloth Apartment also started a rent-to-own model and began to enter a stage of rapid expansion…

On the Zhujia Group side, it was like misfortunes never come singly.

Not only did the stock price plummet, but more importantly, two consecutive major new businesses, "Worry-Free Housing" and "Caring Housekeeper," were both dealt a head-on blow. So many resources were invested, but in the end, only negative effects remained!

Such important core businesses couldn't be promoted casually. To some extent, they would affect the company's organizational structure, personnel training, business direction, and many other aspects from top to bottom. Once a business failed, it could easily cause serious damage.

It was just that Zhujia Group was relatively resilient; other small companies would have been finished long ago.

As the Marketing Director, Gao Ming had attended many meetings and worked many overtime hours during this period, but they watched helplessly as the popularity of *Real Estate Agent Simulator* rose, the number of listings increased, and the business of Shenhua Real Estate and Sloth Apartment rapidly expanded to first-tier cities, yet they were powerless.

Had they tried to resist? Of course, they had.

For example, they mobilized the agents of all their stores to compete with *Real Estate Agent Simulator* for listings, registered accounts to harass the real landlords on the platform, or pretended to be landlords to post listing information in an attempt to lure tenants.

The result was… all their accounts were banned.

Even worse, their Doubt VR headsets were banned as well.

Obviously, Chixing Studio had anticipated this possibility and recruited many people to establish a real-world service department. One of the most important tasks was to supervise the platform, deleting false information and issuing warnings as soon as it was discovered.

Of course, verifying false information was a technical and physical task. In addition to requiring the uploader of the information to provide sufficiently rich and detailed materials, users who reported false listings could also receive good rewards, in order to mobilize everyone's enthusiasm.

It wasn't just Zhujia Group that wanted to mess up *Real Estate Agent Simulator*; other rental brands, and even some small agencies, were even more active.

Because the layers of pressure were falling on them, and they were the ones who suffered the most!

After the integration of *Real Estate Agent Simulator*, Shenhua Real Estate, and Sloth Apartment, they would inevitably seize a large market share, and this market share was mainly the high-end market, targeting quality tenants who demanded high living conditions.

On the surface, this didn't constitute a direct competitive relationship for some small rental brands or local small agencies.

But the problem was, once Sloth Apartment seized Zhujia Group's market share, and Zhujia Group's profits and market share decreased, what would they do?

Unable to beat Sloth Apartment, they would have to continue to move down and compete with those small agencies!

Zhujia Group was a large company, and even if its business was affected to a certain extent, it could still survive by relying on its nationwide stores, a large number of agents, and the listings it held. But these small agencies were not necessarily in the same situation. Once Zhujia Group decided to compete with them for food, they would only starve to death!

Therefore, countless people were trying their best to mess up *Real Estate Agent Simulator*.

They all felt that so many rental apps had failed to solve the problem of real listings, how could *Real Estate Agent Simulator* possibly succeed?

Although so many false listings on these rental apps were deliberately tolerated by the platform, it had to be said that the supervision in this area was indeed very difficult.

Because posting false information to lure customers was a low-cost, high-return activity, it was naturally repeatedly prohibited but never stopped.

But after they posted some false information on *Real Estate Agent Simulator*, they realized that it wasn't the same at all! This thing was fundamentally different from ordinary rental apps!

It was a VR game that you had to pay to buy!

Although *Real Estate Agent Simulator* had launched a game version that ran independently on VR headsets, detached from the computer, in order to take care of players, and the price had been reduced, it still had a cost no matter how much it was reduced.

If you wanted to post false information or harass the landlords on the platform, you first had to register a game account, bind your ID card, and purchase *Real Estate Agent Simulator*. This whole process was troublesome enough. Once your account was banned, not only would the money you spent be wasted, but you would still have to spend a lot of effort to find another ID card to register, right?

Just to post a false message or harass a landlord, spending so much effort, wasn't that a huge loss?

Even more frightening was that the Doubt VR headset was also from Chixing Studio. If it was discovered that the account on a certain headset was always posting false information or was frequently reported by high-quality players, it would trigger the ultimate sanction: headset ban!

This VR headset would be permanently disabled from using the online functions of *Real Estate Agent Simulator*.

In this regard, Chixing Studio was still relatively benevolent, not directly bricking the Doubt VR headset, but this was already an unbearable cost for intermediaries who wanted to cause trouble.

Either, after the headset was banned, you could either keep it for yourself to play, or sell it online at a low price. It was hard to say if anyone would buy it, but you would definitely be scolded.

This combination of punches was a bit too much for both the intermediary companies and individuals.

The key was that the loss was far greater than the gain. Was this trying to mess up *Real Estate Agent Simulator*, or was it helping Chixing Studio's game and VR headset sales?

Moreover, other companies couldn't learn this method.

If they dared to charge for their own rental apps, such as requiring a deposit of dozens of yuan to play, that would definitely be a dead end.

Because even if *Real Estate Agent Simulator* was stripped of its platform attributes, it was still an excellent VR game, and its own quality could support the price. Moreover, with Tenda's reputation as a guarantee, and it did provide a platform for real information, players, tenants, and landlords would all buy it.

Other companies simply didn't have this condition.

Therefore, Zhujia Group and other intermediary companies struggled for a long time, but in the end, they were completely busy in vain. Not only did they not have a significant impact on *Real Estate Agent Simulator*, but they also ended up hoarding a bunch of banned Doubt VR headsets that they couldn't deal with, so they could only forcibly stuff them to store employees as welfare.

Even more outrageous was that some employees, after playing *Real Estate Agent Simulator* due to work reasons, and then watching Young Master Tian's video, suddenly realized the bone-gnawing nature of intermediary companies, and the suppressed dissatisfaction exploded instantly, and they resigned!

Many stores had agents running away, instantly creating a sense of decline in their twilight years.

It could be said that the linkage between *Real Estate Agent Simulator* and Shenhua Real Estate and Sloth Apartment had achieved a dimensionality reduction effect in various senses. Each move was unexpected and impossible for traditional intermediary companies to deal with!

Last month, the first batch of listings that Shenhua Real Estate and Sloth Apartment cooperated with *Real Estate Agent Simulator* had already been launched, and they were instantly snapped up and all rented out.

Shenhua Real Estate didn't care about the rent at all. They were doing brand effect, so the price and quality were very competitive.

As for Sloth Apartment, what had been limiting its scale before was the listings. Now that it was allowed to do long-term rentals, the number of listings had increased, and the previously accumulated reputation and tenants' expectations were instantly realized, so it was naturally a huge hit.

*Real Estate Agent Simulator* gave these two types of high-quality listings a key recommendation, which also attracted more and more people to rent apartments in this game.

In short, there was no hope.

After struggling for a long time, Zhujia Group finally chose to lie flat.

For Gao Ming, this was a good thing, because he could finally stop being tormented by endless meetings and overtime.

As for what Zhujia Group would do in the future…

Who knows, I'm just a humble wage earner.