How to raise a random guy's wife

All the male protagonist can do for her is find the murderer.

So... who is the murderer?

"Ugh—I'm so tired!" Akane Akasaka stopped. Even though it was just repetitive work on a webpage, it still got irritating after a while. "I don't want to do this anymore..."

The real-time comments started refreshing again, urging Akane Akasaka to reveal the answer quickly.

Many people also paid to leave comments, pleading with Akasaka-sensei to persevere a little longer.

Cutting things out at crucial moments is really unethical.

"The ending? The ending is very simple." Akane Kousaka was too lazy to do anything. "If you want to know, I can tell you right now."

The real-time comments are refreshing even faster now, and everyone is telling Akane Kousaka not to give away any spoilers.

"What do you mean don't spoil the plot? Didn't I already spoil it at the beginning?" Akane Kousaka flipped to the front. "Here."

[The female lead didn't die?]

[Is it true or not?]

[Check the time!]

[8:32 PM]

[The female lead died at 8:40!]

That wasn't a dream after death, but a prophetic dream!

"The male protagonist identifies the murderer through the female protagonist's account. After waking up from his dream, he discovers that the female protagonist's death will occur in the future," Akane Akane states the ending directly. "Then he runs over and saves the female protagonist."

Chapter 660 Miraculous Skill

[HE is great!]

[Where is the killer?]

Who is the murderer?

[Is she a teacher or a maid?]

[Could it be my aunt?]

The key is evidence.

[Masaka... Ahrere... Ya Paris... Wagada!]

"The culprit... We've given you all the clues. You can deduce them using the information you have." Akane Akasaka drawled, "If you can't figure it out, wait until I finish uploading it and you can watch it on RGW—that's all for today's live stream. See you later."

Completely ignoring the frantic updates of real-time comments, Akane Akasaka cleanly and decisively ended her live stream.

As the live stream screen went completely black and the real-time comments became even more frantic, the viewers remained speechless for a long time.

So strong... a bit too strong.

Fumio Sagara glanced at the number of likes in the live stream and said, "If all these people went to RGW, the effect of this live stream would be equivalent to the previous promotion by Iori and me."

"This was... a truly despairing lesson." Iori Hashima smirked. "I made mistakes all along."

Bo Island looked at his brother with a puzzled expression, "Wrong?"

“Target audience.” Kobayashi Sora’s voice was calm. “The website’s content does not match the target audience, which is why the data is like this.”

“Sister Zhu Yin’s work perfectly matches the website’s needs,” Kobayashi Megumi smiled. “Although she didn’t say anything, she said everything.”

"Hmm..." Mayu Sagara tried to understand, then gave up trying to think. "Hmm?"

“The market for visual novels isn’t large, but there are always works and players. It’s a niche but very stable genre,” Fumio Sagara explained to his sister. “From the perspective of the publishers, the target players are clearly defined. Visual novels are the type that don’t make much money, but they won’t lose money either. From the perspective of the players, visual novels are the type that you won’t lose money by buying them, and there’s even a chance to make a lot of money.”

“Once you pay, you can enjoy the full gaming experience.” Eriri herself is a player. “Even if the story is just average, the music, CGs, and even the voice actors’ performances are worth the money.”

“But RGW’s model is completely different. It updates chapter by chapter and charges for each chapter.” Kobayashi Sora tapped her forehead. “For the publisher, if they make a profit, they will naturally continue to update. But if the initial performance is not good, they will lose money on each subsequent chapter. For players, even if they pay, they may not be able to enjoy the complete game experience, so they will wait and see. The fewer people buy, the less likely the publisher is to update. The more chapters are discontinued, the less players dare to buy—a vicious cycle.”

"Another issue is the target audience," Iori Hashima added. "Players who like visual novels are used to the old ways and are not very interested in the RGW mode, while players who don't like visual novels are unlikely to like them just because of the RGW mode."

If a website can't attract existing players or gain new ones, it's no wonder it gets no traffic.

Upon arriving at Bo Island, he realized the seriousness of the problem, "What should we do?"

"Sister Zhu Yin has already given the answer." Kobayashi Sora looked at the dark live stream room. "Since it's not a traditional galgame, there's no need to compete with traditional galgames for the market. We can attract players with games that have far less text than traditional galgames, allowing them to enjoy a value-for-money experience in the shortest amount of time, and thus become interested in longer galgames."

The price of visual novels is considered expensive by many people.

Since the audience for visual novels is limited, the only way for traditional visual novels to increase profits is to raise prices.

If it's cheap, not many people will buy it; if it's expensive, not few people will buy it.

Of course, we want to earn more.

RGW can minimize production costs, allowing for a very low price. Without the limitations of physical discs, stories can be made very short. Short stories combined with low costs can push the price to its limit.

With just a little promotion, spending the price of a bento box and the time it takes to watch a movie to experience the fun of a visual novel wouldn't be a big deal for many people.

The traffic surged immediately.

But now RGW features long stories, and even the prologue to "White Album" takes a long time to fully experience.

The threshold is too high.

According to Akane Akasaka, neither the initial promotion nor the game itself is consistent with RWG's theme of lowering the barriers to production and gameplay.

So she made one herself: "Watch closely, this is how RWG plays."

Eriri realized, "So, all we need to do is create more short stories?"

"It's not that simple," Kobayashi Megumi shook her head. "The quality also needs to be up to standard."

Eriri tilted her head. "It shouldn't be too difficult..."

For her, the difficulty of creating excellent scripts is about the same.

Anyway, she can't write it.

But speaking of scripts...

All eyes were on Kasumigaoka Utaha.

Of everyone present, she was the most professional.

“Very difficult.” Kasumigaoka Utaha crossed her arms over her chest, her brows furrowed slightly, and the sound of her leg shaking came from under the table. “Extremely difficult.”

Mayu Sagara recalled the game's content, "I felt the story was very good... Just how good was it?"

Is Kasumigaoka Utaha really that exaggerated?

"This can be considered a minor innovation. It is essentially still a visual novel where you interact with anime girls, but it incorporates elements of classic mystery."

"I know what a classic mystery is!" The anime "The Journey to the Sea" is a variant mystery, so I have some understanding of classic mystery. "It's when the reader and the detective are on the same level and have the same number of clues."

“Akane just said that the current clues are enough to find the culprit, which is one of the characteristics of classic mystery novels.” Kasumigaoka Utaha clicked her tongue. “The key is that while the classic mystery novel is quite excellent, it does not dilute the main theme of the visual novel at all.”

The story opens with the male protagonist's actions to introduce the mystery, then uses the anomaly of the white space to introduce the male and female protagonists, leading to the mystery of the female protagonist's death.

The story then uses a series of flashbacks to further develop the female protagonist's character, creating a contrast with the opening overview and guiding the player to solve the mystery.

But just like the problems faced before setting sail from Po Island, the process of deciphering the mystery is usually tedious and boring.

What makes Akane Kousaka so remarkable is that she incorporates interactions with the female protagonist during the puzzle-solving process.

Chapter 661 As You Wish

"The introduction at the beginning points out the childhood friendship between the male and female protagonists and their current situation of being like strangers after their reunion." Kasumigaoka Utaha analyzes bit by bit, "Using this somewhat complicated emotion to evoke resonance, many people have had this experience. Friends who were originally very good friends are separated because of some things. When they meet again, they want to restore the previous state, but they do not take action because of various concerns, leaving only a surge of complicated emotions."

Universal emotions help increase empathy; they are human nature and can accurately convey emotions simply by explaining the situation, without the need for complex emotional descriptions.

This is like an abstract depiction of the protagonist's struggles and difficult choices, making it hard for players to feel emotional resonance.

The author directly stated that the protagonist didn't know what to eat for lunch, which immediately resonated with the audience.

"The protagonist is aware of his love and longing for the heroine, but what are the heroine's thoughts?" Kasumigaoka Utaha pointed to the screen, "Akane Kousaka didn't say it explicitly, but she revealed the heroine's thoughts with a small detail."

“The jade pendant!” Mayu Sagara immediately recalled the key prop. “It was given to the female lead by the male lead when they were children, and she has always worn it. It was because she always wore it that the magical power of the jade pendant allowed her soul to enter the male lead’s dream when facing a life-or-death crisis!”

The sea voyage to Po Island was breathtaking. "A small prop was not only key to the plot, but also revealed the heroine's feelings, propelling the story forward and enriching it..."

Hashima Izumi has never been able to understand the immense pressure Kasumigaoka Utaha faced when confronting Akane Kousaka.

Now... she's finally experiencing some of it.

She also creates mystery-solving stories, but compared to Akane Akasaka, the gap is too big, both in terms of plot development and the use of key props.

“At this point in the story, the emotions of both characters are quite obvious. If they take the initiative even slightly, they can convey their feelings to each other, but that would end the game. So we need a reasonable question to stop the male and female protagonists from confessing their feelings.” Kasumigaoka Utaha raised a finger. “That question is death.”

Bo Island, on a conditioned reflex, began analyzing the protagonist's psychology: "As for the female protagonist, she had always wanted to restore her previous relationship with the male protagonist, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. Now that she's dead, she doesn't need to worry about so much anymore."

“No.” Kasumigaoka Utaha shook her head. “It’s precisely because he’s already dead that he’s hesitant.”

“Eh… Ah!” Hashima Izumi suddenly realized, “Even if she tells the male protagonist that she likes him, the two of them can’t be together because she is already dead. She doesn’t want the male protagonist to spend the rest of his life reminiscing about her, so the female protagonist won’t express her feelings. She wants to die as an ordinary friend, not as the male protagonist’s lover.”

Mayu Sagara pressed on, "What about the male lead? Since he's already dead, if he doesn't tell us now, he'll never have the chance again, right?"

“The timing is wrong,” Hashima Izumi replied. “It wouldn’t be appropriate to confess my feelings while we’re helping the other person analyze the murderer.”

"So... after the culprit is revealed, the male protagonist will confess to the female protagonist." Kasumigaoka Utaha searched for the feeling of a voice actress, "I... have always loved you deeply."

Bo Island, while sailing out to sea, aptly guessed the female lead's lines: "Telling me now... that's too shameless... I clearly wanted to hide these feelings..."

The two looked at each other, then simultaneously lowered their eyes.

“That’s really impressive…” Eriri suggested, “How about we write a short story with that kind of feel too? We can combine visual novels with other genres, like horror.”

"Knowing that a story is good and knowing how to write it well are two different things." Kasumigaoka Utaha points out the harsh reality. "I analyze here how well Akane Kousaka designed this part, what role the plot played there, and explain the smoothness of the introduction, development, climax, and conclusion, as well as the rationality of the plot design. But for Akane Kousaka, these may just be fleeting inspirations and techniques she can easily come up with. Those elements that make the plot reasonable and attractive have become like muscle memory for her when she is creating."

The meeting room fell silent for a moment.

Kobayashi Megumi tapped the table lightly. "The right development path is now clear. The rest is about working towards that goal; there's no need to rush. Sora Ao, are there any other questions?"

"Yes, firstly, there's the issue of security. Games with large data outputs and low interaction are extremely easy to extract and crack, which would severely impact revenue," Kobayashi Sora explained, listing the current problems one by one. "Secondly, there's the game experience. To ensure a good game experience, we need to guarantee the server's network connectivity to ensure smooth loading of high-quality CGs, which isn't too difficult. Finally, there's compatibility. Testing various browsers is very complicated, but this can be solved by developing a client."

Iori Hashima thought of something: "What about servers? A game may have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of users when it is popular, but after the hot period, it will shrink sharply. If it cannot generate revenue, the cost of renting servers will be a considerable expense."

Kobayashi Sora replied, "RGW is currently using the MangaNet server, so there's no need to worry about that."

"Then the money saved can be used for website promotion." Kobayashi Megumi looked up. "We'll start preparing a short game contest. Any genre that meets the website's requirements is acceptable. We'll use the name 'Akane-nee's Game.' The judging criteria will be based on various rankings. Rewards include cash prizes and remakes. For example, the first place winner will receive a site-wide recommendation, CG remakes, voice acting by famous voice actors, custom music, physical release, light novel and anime adaptations, merchandise development, and a site-wide recommendation. The rewards for lower-ranked players will decrease accordingly. There will also be player spending rewards, limited-edition avatar frames, unique titles, game customization, discounts, and so on. In addition, we'll add a game investment project where players can invest a certain amount of in-game currency. As the game continues to update and generate revenue, players will receive a percentage of the profits. As for piracy, we'll strengthen our review process. Once we deal with a few typical cases, the rest will behave much better. We'll also add website-exclusive content, such as in-game commentary and character rankings—features that pirated versions can't provide—to increase player interaction and enhance user stickiness... That's all for now."