Ye Zhizhou said, “Therefore, we should continue focusing our efforts on this point.”
“Currently, many driving schools across the country are purchasing Safe and Civilized Driving simulators, which has become a trend. For driving schools, our game and simulator can bring them more students, but isn’t the same true for us?”
“Driving schools essentially serve as the entry point for everyone’s exposure to driving, which means they’re helping advertise our product to all students!”
“Moving forward, Shangyang Games will establish a dedicated department to serve these driving schools well and add features commonly requested by them to the game. This way, ‘Safe and Civilized Driving’ can firmly control this entry point and eliminate all potential competitors.”
“Besides creating different venue maps for driving license tests, I’ve thought of another point—developing a local network teaching mode specifically for driving schools. This would allow driving school instructors to teach all students through the simulator, similar to our current livestreaming function, which should improve teaching effectiveness.”
“Additionally, Chi Xing Studio is developing a VR version of ‘Safe and Civilized Driving,’ which should be available to players soon.”
“The collaboration details with Starbird Virtual Sports have also been finalized. To enhance their appeal, we’ll develop something similar to ‘Internet Café Privileges’ to encourage players to visit physical stores for the experience. After all, those who visit might become potential users of the simulator.”
Hu Xianbin listened attentively, nodding from time to time.
Many of these initiatives required Hu Xianbin’s cooperation, and with good coordination, they could further enhance Rabbit Tail Livestreaming’s popularity and reputation.
Ye Zhizhou changed the subject: “However… there’s one aspect I’m not sure how to advance.”
“It’s about collaborating with automobile companies.”
“Mr. Pei previously mentioned raising the bar for cooperation with car manufacturers, striving to maintain quality control for players, and ensuring that vehicle quality in the game matches reality as much as possible.”
“On this point, Mr. Pei only mentioned charging car manufacturers platform fees and making them pay for crash tests. But these seem to be relatively passive measures, inconsistent with Tenda’s consistent style of taking initiative.”
“Is there some deeper content here that I haven’t grasped?”
The Tenda spirit has always been about divergent thinking and pioneering progress—forge ahead when conditions are favorable; when conditions aren’t favorable, create favorable conditions and forge ahead anyway!
But currently, cooperation with car manufacturers remains at a passive waiting stage, which doesn’t embody the Tenda spirit.
What if car manufacturers don’t approach us? Just keep waiting passively?
Yet Ye Zhizhou couldn’t figure out how to take initiative, as this matter couldn’t be forced.
Hu Xianbin fell into deep thought: “Hmm… let me think.”
He stood up and paced around the office a couple of times, then said, “I think we can’t handle this matter personally, as we’re playing the role of a platform.”
“But we also can’t wait passively and do nothing.”
“This kind of task… is most suitable for the car manufacturers currently cooperating with us.”
Ye Zhizhou’s eyes lit up: “Oh?”
Hu Xianbin explained, “Only when players generally accept the concept that ‘car manufacturers willing to put their vehicles in Safe and Civilized Driving are confident in their products’ will our platform have unique value.”
“How can we make players accept this concept? Our words alone won’t be effective; the car manufacturers need to speak up.”
“If they don’t know how to communicate effectively, then we need to teach them.”
“On this point, I think we can reference Chi Xing Studio’s approach by establishing a Real-world Services Department.”
“Weren’t you just planning to split off a department from Shangyang Games to handle these matters?”
Ye Zhizhou was momentarily confused: “Real-world Services Department? Teaching car manufacturers how to communicate?”
“Oh! I understand now!”
Initially, Ye Zhizhou was a bit puzzled, but as soon as he thought about Chi Xing Studio’s Real-world Services Department, everything became clear.
Mr. Pei raised the cooperation threshold for “Safe and Civilized Driving” to such a degree to maintain strict quality control and be responsible to players. But this inevitably led to a serious problem—significantly weakened willingness from car manufacturers to cooperate.
Not only did they have to pay platform fees, but they also had to provide sample cars for crash tests, plus there were numerous unfriendly terms.
From the perspective of players and consumers, this was certainly a great thing, but would car manufacturers be happy about it?
Absolutely not.
So if Shangyang Games continued to wait passively, the result would definitely be dismal.
Although Mr. Pei had set such stringent conditions to properly screen these car manufacturers, was his intention to prevent car manufacturers from cooperating? Clearly not!
Therefore, they still needed to find a way to facilitate cooperation with major car manufacturers!
As for how to facilitate this—that was a technical challenge.
Tenda certainly couldn’t intervene directly; that would be too rigid.
They needed a catfish effect—creating a trend and sense of crisis that would motivate these car manufacturers to cooperate with Tenda.
Just like Hengyuan Driving School’s effect on other driving schools.
If the concept that “manufacturers who cooperate with ‘Safe and Civilized Driving’ are confident in their vehicles” could deeply penetrate public consciousness, then more and more car manufacturers would naturally accept the conditions and cooperate with Tenda.
If they could go a step further and also instill the concept that “manufacturers who don’t cooperate with ‘Safe and Civilized Driving’ probably have something to hide and lack confidence in their vehicles,” then… these manufacturers might have no choice but to cooperate with Tenda.
At this point, they needed a manufacturer to achieve this catfish effect, just like Hengyuan Driving School.
After Hengyuan Driving School purchased Safe and Civilized Driving simulators in large quantities, other driving schools quickly followed suit, fearing they would fall behind, and were forced to make purchases as well.
The same principle applied to car manufacturers.
Ye Zhizhou frowned deeply: “But currently, we don’t have such a car manufacturer.”
“The first batch of car manufacturers cooperating with us, although they include some well-known new energy vehicle companies in China, their market position is far inferior compared to Hengyuan Driving School’s position in the national driving school circle.”
“If they can’t generate enough buzz, we can’t talk about any catfish effect. After all, it needs to be a relatively strong catfish.”
Hu Xianbin also fell silent.
After thinking for a moment, he said, “I’m out of ideas on this one; I don’t know much about the automotive industry either. But… when in doubt, ask the department heads—perhaps other managers might have a solution.”
“That’s true,” Ye Zhizhou nodded. “Alright, we’ll end our discussion here for today. I’ll go back and consult with the team at Chi Xing Studio first to see how exactly to set up the Real-world Services Department and whether there are any existing experiences we can learn from.”
……
At 9:30 AM, on the 16th floor of Shenhua Haojing.
Pei Qian arrived at the company and, as usual, headed straight into his office.
A few minutes later, Ma Yang also arrived and entered the CEO’s office.
The two stayed there all morning, even having lunch delivered to the office by a delivery guy from Slackin’ Delivery, without coming out.
At the Human Resources Department, Wu Bin and Hao Yun were eating work meals delivered by Slackin’ Delivery while speculating with serious expressions.
“Mr. Pei and Mr. Ma have been in a meeting all morning? Even eating in the office? Wow, this must be something major!”
“I don’t know. And when I saw Mr. Ma come out to get the work meals earlier, he had abandoned his usual optimistic expression and looked very solemn—it must be something significant.”
“Could they be worried about ‘Ghost General 2’?”
“Unlikely. ‘Ghost General 2’ is just one of many games—how could it make Mr. Pei and Mr. Ma so tense? In my opinion, it must be related to some major strategic decision affecting the company’s future development.”
“Hmm… after all, Tenda has grown so large now. We often feel overwhelmed just managing one department, let alone Mr. Pei and Mr. Ma.”
“Don’t worry, just trust Mr. Pei. No matter what difficulties we encounter, he’ll definitely lead us through safely!”
After finishing their meals and taking a short break, Wu Bin and Hao Yun threw themselves back into intense work.
Mr. Pei was exhausting himself for the company’s development—how could the department heads slack off?
Work harder!
……
Meanwhile, in the CEO’s office.
Pei Qian and Old Ma were staring at each other, looking at the empty documents in front of them.
How were they supposed to write this graduation thesis?!
They had been thinking for an entire morning but had absolutely no ideas!
Pei Qian had originally planned to write at his residence, but judging from his weekend experience, his efficiency was obviously too low with the temptation of the big TV and various games.
Pei Qian then thought about going to the university’s study room, but it was too late—there would definitely be no seats available at this hour.
The students at Handong University all loved studying, and their ability to secure seats was just as strong as their learning ability.
After considering all options, he decided on the office!
It was spacious and comfortable, and there was even a small blanket to wrap around himself if it got cold.
It was perfect to bring Old Ma along too, creating a bit of a study atmosphere.
However, this move didn’t have much effect—the thesis that couldn’t be written still couldn’t be written!
The evidence showed that the inability to write a thesis had little to do with the environment.
It had a lot to do with the person…
Pei Qian sighed quietly: “Old Ma, what are we going to do?”
Ma Yang looked up, his long face full of surprise: “Huh? Brother Qian, weren’t you full of confidence before? Why are you suddenly so discouraged?”
Pei Qian responded with a wry smile, realizing that Old Ma still had no idea about the severity of the situation.
Come to think of it, that made sense—after all, no one had told Ma Yang the heartbreaking news yet: he had been assigned to Professor Kong, just like himself!
This graduation thesis had suddenly transformed from simple difficulty to hell difficulty.