The Devs' Business Model

"………Haaah…"

"Penpen, welcome back. You're back already?"

"Ahh… I'm back."

When we returned from Mahariku-san's SP Quest, Penpen had come back too.

Her face was the picture of pure bliss.

I could tell. The steak had definitely been delivered.

"So how was it? The real-life steak."

"…… I thought real life stopped being real."

"I KNOW, RIGHT!!!"

That's right. Meat from the game, same taste and texture, delivered right to your doorstep in real life.

And now, the room was divided: those who had eaten it and those who hadn't.

"Was that… actually real?"

"It was real."

"… So it's real, huh. By the way, I ordered two."

"Oh… You ordered two."

"Both of them arrived."

Wha… What!?

Even Mahariku-san's eyes went wide at this.

"Huh. So… you won the campaign twice, then."

"Nah, this probably means it shows up regardless of any campaign, yo."

"… Could it be first-come-first-served, perhaps?"

"If so, we'd better get our Homes and eat that steak ASAP, yo."

Yeah, I was personally just praying this wasn't some first-come-first-served campaign but a permanent feature.

After all, there'd been no announcements about it…

If it were a first-come deal, you'd expect them to advertise it…

The website still had nothing but those cryptic videos… Oh wait, they did at least have a contact form.

"As long as the devs haven't said otherwise, I choose to believe this is permanent…!"

"But high-grade meat like that obviously costs more than the game itself. There's no way they can break even doing that forever."

"Isn't that kind of beside the point at this stage?"

"If anything, I want to scream 'Let us pay!' at the top of my lungs, yo!"

We'd be in real trouble if the devs went under and the game shut down…

Then again, going under or not, the tech was clearly something else entirely, so that was really beside the point.

"I haven't spent anything beyond the initial purchase and they're giving me this insane meat… is that really okay? I almost went for the second one right away."

"Are you gonna eat the second one later, yo?"

"Ahh… I know it's not great, but I'm gonna resell it to put toward my debt payments."

"… If word gets out how to get it, people would flood this game just for the meat… Though that might generate its own buzz? Could technically count as a successful campaign."

"Even so, they'd just end up in the red, yo. People who started for the meat would quit if they stopped getting any… Oh wait, it's a one-time purchase upfront, so maybe it doesn't matter, yo?"

Well, we're playing for the VR though.

A game that does hyper-realistic full-dive VR from a mobile terminal doesn't exist anywhere else! No, seriously. It's magic. I can't explain it with any science I know, so at this point it's all just magic.

"What are the devs even thinking…"

"Hmm… Maybe they have some other big revenue stream, yo? Like, they're having players test new tech in-game, so they can afford to give back to players, yo?"

"Ah, that's plausible."

"What other big revenue? I don't remember doing any testing…"

Mahariku-san suddenly fell silent, thinking.

"… New tech, huh. Now that you mention it, the fact that no play logs remain on my VR terminal is new tech in itself. Could it be some kind of security hacking technology test?"

"Like there's a security hole that existing software can't detect, and they're pulling data through it, yo? Scary, yo."

"… There's no trace of any database access at all. The employee dormitory's top-notch security not reacting to anything and just letting it pass should be physically impossible."

According to her, accessing anything external through the dormitory's network required physically routing through a dedicated server. Yet the logs showed absolutely zero VR-related activity.

To use an analogy, it was like cutting a hose attached to a faucet and sticking a board in the middle, yet water still somehow came out the other end.

The board had no holes. Not even a trace of moisture. That was the level they were dealing with.

"… Should I just quit this game while I still can?"

"What would happen to Ichi-chan and the others, yo?"

"More importantly, Roku-chan's been listening to all of this and she's already pale as a ghost."

"Gah, that's playing dirty!! Now there's no way I can quit!? Demon! Devil! Chihiro!"

Right, you just couldn't quit this game. The characters really did seem alive.

Also, who the heck is Chihiro.