This elaborate post of several hundred words triggered a heated response online, with many voices in agreement.

“The analysis makes so much sense!”

“A glimpse reveals the leopard—the difference in vision between these two companies is truly vast.”

“I didn’t think much of it before, but thinking carefully about it now, something’s definitely off. Finger Games wants both profit and reputation, treating us like fools!”

This time, Eric couldn’t remain calm.

This post was practically cutting to the heart!

After the specific activities of the 515 Game Festival were revealed, Eric’s side was already at a disadvantage and struggling with public opinion. This was because Tenda’s 515 activities were “giveaways,” while Eric’s side offered “discounts”—a fundamental difference.

When evaluating the two companies, players had already developed somewhat colored perspectives.

Even loyal IOI players had many complaints because IOI’s activity rewards weren’t as good as Tenda’s.

In normal circumstances, especially without a competing game for comparison, the IOI mobile game issue would have been completely ordinary, not worth mentioning.

Currently, there were too many games on the market with no cross-platform compatibility—money spent on the PC version had to be spent again on the mobile version. Players would complain a bit and then continue spending money, and those game companies didn’t face much criticism.

Compared to those games, the IOI mobile game would seem incredibly generous.

But now the IOI mobile game was being criticized, and the issue had even escalated to the company’s motivational level!

Why?

Because it got tangled up with Tenda!

Other games truly had no cross-platform compatibility and earned money twice, but the key was that they quietly made their money without ever daring to challenge Tenda.

They maintained an attitude of “we’re just here to make money,” letting players criticize as they wished—after all, they were small operations that couldn’t compare to Tenda.

Additionally, these games weren’t that big, and players were accustomed to this developer persona. They didn’t have high expectations, so they didn’t feel the need to pursue the issue.

But IOI was different.

The whole world knew it was a direct competitor to GOG, and this new version and promotional activities were all aimed at grabbing GOG’s market share.

Clearly, players’ requirements were for it to fully match GOG’s standards, naturally making them much more stringent.

Eric never imagined that, despite IOI mobile and “Fitness Battle” being completely different types of games, players would still find a way to compare them: one played word games to deliberately mislead players, while the other was very rigorous, even giving up early promotional momentum to avoid misleading players!

More fatally, many players slightly extended this detail, believing it reflected deeper issues between the two companies: such as differences in values, attitudes toward players, and sincerity.

Combined with the stereotypes players had formed since the beginning of the 515 Game Festival, everyone had clearly sided with Tenda, firmly resisting the behavior of the IOI mobile game!

Eric leaned back in his chair, unable to hide his exhaustion.

So mentally draining!

How could he have anticipated that Mr. Pei would be waiting for him in such a place?

He had originally thought that pitting the IOI mobile game against “Fitness Battle” would be foolproof, but now it seemed that “Fitness Battle” might have been a card Mr. Pei had calculated long ago, perhaps even deliberately posturing at the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack press conference to lure him in!

The most vicious aspect of this move was that it completely sacrificed the early promotion of the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack and “Fitness Battle,” reinforcing the inherent impression in players’ minds: “Tenda always considers players first; Finger Games and Long Yu Group pretend to consider players but are actually trying to make money for themselves.”

Once such an impression was reinforced, it might not show any immediate effects, but it would have a subtle, far-reaching influence!

Moreover, Eric couldn’t find any way to counterattack.

If Mr. Pei decided to burn more money with a wave of his hand, Eric’s side could naturally continue burning money too.

But Mr. Pei had effortlessly established this impression in players’ minds—how could Eric act, and how much money would he need to spend to eliminate this impression?

Furthermore, Eric couldn’t convince all the higher-ups at Finger Games.

Mr. Pei had struck right at his weak point with a single move!

Zhao Xuming waited patiently for Eric’s response.

He knew very well that the IOI mobile game had only been online for just over an hour. While the issue hadn’t yet escalated, there should still be a chance to salvage the situation.

But if they kept delaying without responding, players’ dissatisfaction would gradually accumulate, with more and more players comparing the IOI mobile game to “Fitness Battle,” essentially giving “Fitness Battle” free publicity.

Eric frowned deeply, forcing himself to calm down.

“We can’t focus our efforts on the IOI mobile game.”

“The mobile game was designed this way by the higher-ups’ decision; I’m unlikely to convince them. Besides, even if we change it now, the damage to players has already been done, and the lost trust cannot be recovered.”

“Stereotypes have already formed and would be difficult to reverse. Moreover, we can’t imitate Mr. Pei’s approach.”

“In my view… we should go with the flow.”

“Instead of fighting to the death with Mr. Pei in areas where he excels, we should increase our efforts on promotional activities.”

Eric’s thinking was clear: Tenda could operate this way because of its special circumstances.

The company was entirely under Mr. Pei’s control, with the entire company following his lead, allowing him to take such radical measures.

But Finger Games wasn’t Eric’s alone, and Long Yu Group wasn’t Zhao Xuming’s alone. They were at most among the higher-ups, and couldn’t make final decisions on many matters.

This determined that even if they wanted to pretend to be as “virtuous” as Tenda, they couldn’t pull it off convincingly because other higher-ups, including the boss, were still focused on maximizing profits.

Therefore, imitating Tenda’s model would be like Dong Shi attempting to imitate Xi Shi’s beauty—not only would they bleed heavily, but there likely wouldn’t be much positive effect.

Eric decided to focus on offering more discounts, such as further reducing skin prices. As long as they intensified promotional activities, they could surely recover much of their reputation.

Zhao Xuming gave a thumbs up: “Wise! Your thinking is so clear, I’ve learned a lot!”

“So… what kind of promotional activities should we do?”

Eric thought for a moment: “Our current activities are primarily discount-based. It’s not impossible to further reduce prices beyond the current discounts, but the effect might not be great, and it could cause dissatisfaction among players who have already made purchases.”

Zhao Xuming nodded; this was easy to understand.

For example, if a skin was previously 50% off and players happily bought it, only for it to become 70% off a few days later, how could players accept that?

Refunding the difference would be troublesome and would make the game company seem frivolous, as if their words meant nothing, changing policies overnight.

So, to increase discounts, they needed to try something different.

Eric asked: “Director Zhao, you’re more familiar with mainland players’ preferences. What kind of promotional activity do you think would be more popular?”

Zhao Xuming thought for a moment, then had a flash of inspiration: “What do you think about… a gacha event?”

“Gacha has always been Chinese players’ favorite way to spend money, especially the excitement of drawing rare rewards, which gives them great satisfaction.”

“We can create a gacha event with slightly lower advertised discounts, like 70% off. But players will draw some items they don’t need, encouraging them to spend more, which won’t be too unprofitable for us.”

“To increase the appeal to players, we can include many limited-edition skins that are no longer for sale in the prize pool.”

“As long as we make this gacha event just a little bit more generous, players will be very satisfied.”

“Tenda’s 515 Game Festival doesn’t have a similar gacha event, and Mr. Pei’s ‘pure giveaway’ activity model doesn’t support gacha events. If we do this, we should be able to create differentiated competition with Tenda.”

Eric nodded frequently as he listened: “Hmm, sounds good!”

“How long will it take to develop this activity?”

Zhao Xuming said: “Very quickly! We can implement this gacha event on the website. It’s not a particularly complex feature—we can definitely complete it before the weekend!”

“If we’re concerned that players can’t wait, we can first issue an announcement to calm their emotions.”

“Then give some gacha tickets to those players who have already spent money, and it should be foolproof.”

Eric was delighted: “Good, let’s do it!”

“Director Zhao, you’ve finally come up with a good idea! If this succeeds, you’ll have done a great service.”

Zhao Xuming hurriedly waved his hands: “Oh no, no, no, I’m just making a suggestion. Whether it’s feasible or not still depends on your decision.”

For Zhao Xuming, he could offer ideas, but he couldn’t take the blame. He didn’t want to rush to the front line of battle with Mr. Pei and become cannon fodder.

Eric immediately made the decision: “Then it’s settled. Let’s immediately develop the gacha feature, and get the announcement out as soon as possible!”