“The previous thinking was not quite right. I shouldn’t limit my thinking to price anymore.”

“I can’t afford a price increase, and my good brothers can’t afford a price decrease, so the price aspect is a dead end.”

“Starting with price will never solve the problem.”

“So, considering it from a different angle, the key now is how to get the players from the GOG side to flow back to the IOI side.”

“Even if these players don’t abandon GOG, as long as they can bring some traffic and revenue to IOI, won't my good brothers be able to hold on?”

“Moreover, this doesn’t count as a violation; it can only be considered normal business communication, and the system should be able to fudge it.”

Pei Qian had been struggling for a long time and hadn't come up with a good solution, but now, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck, and he found another approach.

Could this be the so-called "desperate measures"?

Seeing that his good brothers were about to fail, and the previous treatments were ineffective, he suddenly came up with a new treatment.

It seemed his good brothers could be saved again!

Pei Qian immediately turned on his computer and recorded his general thoughts.

In short, it was to promote cooperation between GOG and IOI. GOG would hold some official events to attract its players to IOI.

Of course, players would definitely be reluctant to move, so some rewards and incentives would be needed, such as playing IOI for a while and returning to receive a skin or something.

If only GOG were doing this, it would definitely seem very strange and easily arouse suspicion about its motives.

Therefore, he had to communicate with Finger Company and Long Yu Group, asking them to cooperate and symbolically hold similar events as well.

But in the negotiation process, Pei Qian would make the greatest possible concessions.

For example, GOG would give some very good rewards in this event, driving players to play IOI to get rewards; while IOI would give some relatively ordinary and useless rewards, so IOI players would remain unmoved, forming a one-way flow from GOG to IOI.

On the surface, it would seem that the two games had reached a cooperative relationship to make the pie bigger together, but in reality, it was GOG unilaterally providing blood to IOI.

“Yes, this idea shouldn’t have any major problems. If I can achieve my goal, then IOI will definitely be able to last a little longer.”

“It seems that no similar games have ever done this kind of crossover before, but Tenda must dare to be the first!”

In Pei Qian's memory, crossovers between games often only existed between games from the same company, or between games that didn't have direct conflicts of interest.

For example, some single-player AAA titles would have crossover events because there wasn’t as much competition between AAA titles. Players would spend dozens of hours beating one and then look for the next one.

But MOBA games were different, with fierce competition. There was no such thing as beating the game. Every MOBA game wanted to bind players to the game 24 hours a day.

Therefore, in Pei Qian’s memory, it seemed that no two MOBA games had ever had a crossover event.

Situations like your hero guest-starring in my game or creating a set of themed skins together had never happened.

But this obviously couldn't stop Pei Qian's pace; it even made him speed up.

"The only question is whether Finger Company and Long Yu Group will accept my proposal."

"Well... if IOI were still at its peak, they would definitely refuse, no doubt."

"But now GOG's market share, especially in the national server, has far exceeded IOI's. As long as I make enough concessions, it will be equivalent to GOG unilaterally providing blood to IOI. Faced with very real interests, the higher-ups at Finger Company should accept."

"Yes, let's do it this way."

"Although it may not save my good brothers, I still have to try."

When it came to attempts to lose money, Pei Qian was a very proactive person. He immediately decided to call Eric.

...

Fifteen minutes later, Pei Qian hung up the phone.

"As expected, Eric is still full of suspicion about my motives..."

"But the good thing is that he can't make the decision alone and will have to consult the higher-ups."

"In that case, there should still be hope."

After Pei Qian called to explain his intentions and briefly put forward several suggestions for cooperation, Eric fell into a silence lasting more than a minute.

Obviously, Eric had always been extremely wary of Pei Qian.

President Pei had proposed a plan, a plan for in-game crossovers and mutual player diversion, very generously offering rich reward conditions on the GOG side, and even emphasized that IOI did not need to give equal reward conditions, as long as it was passable.

And how to divert players was precisely the problem that Eric and the entire Finger Company had been racking their brains over.

For MOBA games, active players were everything, because the number of active players would directly affect the game experience.

Fewer players meant fewer noobs, and it also meant that the matching mechanism would have more difficulty matching opponents with similar strengths.

Once the bottom layer of the matching mechanism collapsed, the middle-level players would be reduced to bottom-level players. Those who could originally carry the whole team would now always be matched with opponents who were obviously stronger than them and get crushed. This imbalance in mentality would further exacerbate the situation of player loss.

Conversely, an increase in active players could improve the game experience, entering a virtuous cycle.

That’s why it’s said that MOBA games are winner-take-all games. In the same field, only a few giants will be able to reach the end, and newcomers will find it difficult to shake the position of the rulers.

On the surface, President Pei's proposal was obviously very tempting because it could bring active players and revenue to IOI.

But Eric knew President Pei too well. He always felt that there must be some conspiracy hidden behind President Pei's actions. On the surface, it looked like lending a helping hand in the snow and helping each other, but who knew if it would turn out to be "borrowing a road to conquer the state" or a Trojan horse entering the city?

If Eric had the final say, he would immediately reject President Pei's proposal.

But now he was just a tool.

In order to better allow IOI to fulfill its responsibilities and earn profits, Dayak Group had unknowingly tightened its control over Finger Company's headquarters and various branch offices.

Now, Eric had to report this matter truthfully. Whether or not to cooperate would depend on the decision of the Dayak Group's higher-ups.

This would inevitably be accompanied by infighting between higher-ups of different factions, and in the end, they might come up with a more compromise or distorted plan, but in any case, this was not something Eric could participate in.

Although he was deeply misunderstood by his good brothers Eric, Pei Qian didn't care.

Anyway, he was just doing his best and leaving the rest to fate, lending his good brothers a hand. If the other party didn't appreciate it, then he could only give up.

With the efficiency of the Dayak Group's higher-ups, this matter probably wouldn't be decided for a while.

But Pei Qian wasn't in a hurry. Although IOI's current situation wasn't optimistic, it wouldn't be easy for it to die suddenly.

Pei Qian took two more sips of coffee and continued to check on the situation in other departments.

Just then, there was a knock on the office door.

Pei Qian looked up and saw that the person who came was Liang Qingfan.

This person in charge of Sloth Apartments hadn't been selected for the special training list for the Suffering Travel, so he had been able to cooperate with Chi Xing Studio for some time, providing data support related to apartment types for the game *Real Estate Agent Simulator*.

Pei Qian hadn't chosen him to go to the special training mainly for two reasons.

One aspect was that although Sloth Apartments was very popular, it didn't make much money, and it was impossible to recover the money spent on purchasing fixed assets anytime soon; the other aspect was that Liang Qingfan was also responsible for the important task of selecting and designing the location for the Tenda Building, and this work couldn't be delayed.

"President Pei, regarding the selection and design of the headquarters building, after a period of research, I have some preliminary ideas here, and I've come to report to you."

As Liang Qingfan spoke, he handed the plan he was holding to Pei Qian.

Pei Qian reached out to take it.

Liang Qingfan said, "First of all, there's the issue of location."

"From the current point of view, there actually aren't many large pieces of land in Jingzhou that can be used for the construction of a headquarters building, and our choices will naturally be limited."

"Jingzhou as a whole is expanding to the west and south, but these popular areas are either already under construction or have already been auctioned off and are waiting for development. Even if we are a major taxpayer in Jingzhou and can enjoy certain conveniences on some issues, these procedural issues can't be bypassed."

"If it were just a building, it would be fine, but President Pei, you requested that the floor area be as large as possible, so generally small plots of land would naturally not meet the standards."

"Therefore, I considered a location in the northeast of Jingzhou, near the old industrial area."

"It just so happens that there are already related industries such as the Snack Market and Thriller Hostel here, and the subway line has also been planned. Considering everything, it's a more suitable location."

Pei Qian fell into thought, not speaking.

He wasn't too satisfied with this location.

Because it was too close to the Thriller Hostel and the Snack Market.

As everyone knew, strange chemical reactions seemed to easily occur between Tenda's industries, especially with such close proximity, which was even more likely to lead to some unpredictable changes.

But as Liang Qingfan said, there weren't many places to choose from.

Municipal planning was a very long-term matter. The use of a certain piece of land might have already been decided several years ago. And now was a time of rapid economic development, and real estate companies were also booming. Various land uses within the city were being snatched up fiercely.

Finding a small piece of land might not be difficult, but finding a piece of land large enough to accommodate the entire Tenda Group might not be easy.

Because Pei Qian's goal was to spend more money, the bigger the business, the better. Just a building obviously couldn't meet President Pei's need to spend money.

Pei Qian even had an idea to take this opportunity to build a headquarters building and clear out his share of fixed assets.

So many fixed assets had already affected the settlement. If there wasn't enough money during the process of building the headquarters building, Pei Qian could legitimately sell off some of these buildings to ease the burden on the settlement.

Considering everything, this place was really the most suitable.

As for the problem of being too close to the Thriller Hostel and the Snack Market...

It shouldn't be a big problem, after all, the Tenda headquarters building couldn't make a profit. At most, it would just become a celebrity building, right? As long as it didn't make too much money, it would be fine.

Liang Qingfan continued, "As for the shape of the building... I've also designed a few simple ones."

"President Pei, take a look and see which one looks more pleasing to the eye?"

"Or if there are some more specific design elements, they can also be added."