novurdim

Saying that they backed out from Hello, Goodbye isn't quite right since NN had to make additional changes to the all-ages version removing the panty shots and lingerie, you can look up Chuee's tweets about it. It's fairly obvious that they don't consider that decision a "mistake" per se. Making additional changes to the all-ages versions to appease Valve isn't even a rarity nowadays, we see it everywhere from Moenovel to EVNs. Just like those are also not the only all-ages games they have banned, from the top of my head I can remember Yotsunoha (even if we did predict it because one of the heroines looks a bit younger than usual but it still clearly wouldn't be banned under the old policy) and I'm sure there are games I'm forgetting about.
I can't say that Valve got more "strict" after the implementation of the porn content, you can't get "stricter" when there isn't really anything to compare with, it's just that they are now actually looking over certain types of games, and since Valve's guidelines are completely non-existent even light fanservice can easily get your game banned depending on the reviewer's mood. Everything is arbitrary even with all-ages games, there's no real even relatively consistent logic behind their decisions, in that sense the situation got considerably worse for the industry, nothing is worse for business than unpredictability of your main sales outlet. There are times when you can be more sure in successfully selling your game on switch than in getting it on steam so yeah, I wouldn't try to give them any objective measure as of yet.
I also don't agree with these VN STEAM DIE topics we get every few months which highlight random few games that supposedly aren't selling well yet and then make huge sensational blanket statements. Right after people were surprised how well Hitotsuba is doing on steam based on some weird internal numbers when it has the roughly same number of reviews as Trinoline (30-40)...? Or when we literally just had a very succesful launch (if you believe those same people and NN staff) of Sankaku Ren'ai? You guys also do remember the steam's peculiarity in how sales are mostly happening over time and during sales? I think pretty much every person in the industry commented about this. That's why steam is so important to them, it gives a constant stream of revenue. Even Eden didn't start all that well but turned into a real sales monster with time. I remember how I was disappointed that most MG VNs back in 2016 couldn't get even 10 reviews for a very long time but many of them turned into very fine sellers. It just shows that there have always been games with barely any reviews for months, the instant hits do happen but they are few and far in between. Heck, Subarashiki Hibi/Wonderful Everyday started with like 30-40 reviews+absolute gloom on the forum too and is now at 325. And those are all english reviews, SH doesn't have chinese TL. I don't even see any food for discussion in the OP to be honest. 

Trite, silly (or often just plain stupid?) in a bad sense, super-safe, mostly tries to be a very unfunny comedy with an uneven pacing and direction. Though it is admittedly very difficult to create an engaging comedy around such bland characters with a few "funny" traits. All the bad elements reach their peak during the pseudocomedic filler episodes about "trying to hit it big", god those are painful to watch. There's also no interesting story to speak of so far, you'll probably predict 95% of the developments during the first episode and the way those are realised is more irritating than endearing.
You'll soon notice how C&T is strenuously catering to the progressive mainstream western audience instead of the usual crowd of what you'd usually call "anime fans" which is not a bad thing in itself, but with Watanabe it breaks his usual quirky imaginative style into something very... weirdly sterilized which kind of breaks the whole point. There's a huge amount of on the nose references to the popular western films and events if you like that kind of thing, the production values are high and some songs are good but otherwise I didn't find much to love here and barely suffered through the first six episodes. Alas, maybe it's just me since the overall reception is mainly positive so far among those who do watch it. Maybe it's that new kind of western-influenced netflix anime everyone is looking forward to, I guess...? 

Actually, in general I'd consider this season to be reasonably better than the previous one. At least potentially so.
I will definitely check out Vinland Saga and Cop Craft. The first is based on a highly acclaimed manga, has VIKINGS and is backed by a good team so you probably can't go wrong with it. The second is a bit more iffy. While most novel readers I know consider Cop Craft Gatoh Shoji's (Full Metal Panic, Amaburi) best work and I do quite like the premise, anime is made in a very weird studio by the staff I've never heard of. Trailers look decent enough and Gatoh is personally adapting the script (the last time I remember an original author personally writing the script for anime was SukaSuka and that one turned out great) so I'm staying positive but yeah, there's a number of ways for things to suddenly go south.
Otherwise, I may sometime watch
 

No, the point of the game localization company is to translate it into the target language in a way that preserves the author's original ideas and intent the most while considering the particularities of said language. There are all sorts of localization industries with their own rules so we shouldn't mix them up with the extremely broad definitions. The idea of making something "fit into the american themes prevalent today" honestly horrifies me and provokes nightmarish flashbacks from the days of yore when official anime releases were messed up beyond recognition and the legendary 4kids did their legendary stuff. 
Not to mention, that americans are not even close to the sole target of such localizations, its target audience is the whole english-speaking world.

No, the point of the game localization company is to translate it into the target language in a way that preserves the author's original ideas and intent the most while considering the particularities of said language. There are all sorts of localization industries with their own rules so we shouldn't mix them up with the extremely broad definitions. The idea of making something "fit into the american themes prevalent today" honestly horrifies me and provokes nightmarish flashbacks from the days of yore when official anime releases were messed up beyond recognition and the legendary 4kids did their legendary stuff. 
Not to mention, that americans are not even close to the sole target of such localizations, its target audience is the whole english-speaking world.

Fruitbat don't publish/license the game so I have only meant that even though they don't release 18+ games themselves, they should still bring to the Harukaze's attention (who are basically self-publishing the game) that there's a very eager audience for the original 18+ version and plenty of platforms to sell it on. Since, you know, it looks like Harukaze have no meaningful interaction with the western audience whatsoever. Nothing more, nothing less. 
I'd even say that I generally like Fruitbat, they have released plenty of cool non-ero VNs like Chuusotsu or Seabed, sustain a somewhat decent TL/tech quality and the only game of theirs that originally had ero got the 18+ release on behalf of JAST anyway so it's not like they robbed you of anything. I'm only salty that they didn't bring Eiyuu Senki to the vita back in the day. Boo.

Pretty sure he simply meant the censored nipples which can be considered a part of censoring H-scenes.

Pretty sure he simply meant the censored nipples which can be considered a part of censoring H-scenes.

One of the main problems I have is a lot of the times it doesn't accurately represent the characters personality. In Fureraba there is red haired chick that's supposed to be a classic tsundere, but all the swearing in her dialogue turns her into an American bitch. I'm pretty sure most of us that read VNs are weebs and we actually enjoy the Japanese anime trope character archetypes. Localization companies seem so hell bent on removing those aspects of a character and changing the characters into an American archetype that is similar. I know I sure as hell don't want that. I want a translation that keeps as much of the Japanese anime culture present as possible while still having sentences that flow well. A lot of the times I see people try defend the overly liberal translations by saying 'native English people don't talk like that'. The fuck do I care about how actual English people speak. I want to see how the Japanese anime character speaks, but in English.

RIP Fuwa, we will miss you unless we forget about you.

Basically, this whole topic is a simple indirect kink-bashing under an imaginary excuse of "normalising" something, the thing you can see on those weird twitter accounts with kirby avatars whose day usually consists of going around and attacking people for enjoying the stuff they might consider problematic. I'm pretty sure the thoughtlessly hysterical stance of Funya is very harmful to humanity in general, a thing that leads to censoring any stuff the arbitrary hivemind doesn't like, an endless pitfall of sorts. You don't like certain themes and imagery? Avoid it. It's very easy to do nowadays. Making yourself look like a weird victim simply because you aren't capable of responsible consuption is such a childish thing to do that it doesn't deserve any real discussion. I am not interested in reading stuff like Euphoria, Starless or Maggot baits but that doesn't mean that community is somehow bad for liking those or that people should be banned from the discussion. The only possible advise here is to grow up and learn to differentiate reality from fiction.

Sorry, I'll get serious for a second, because you are being frivolous and (I hope) you don't realise it.
You say you could've been "traumatized" by posting online because you've seen "extreme" stuff. Earlier you felt entitled to say that things like loli content can make abuse victims re-traumatized.
Due to the environments I've lived my life in, I've known victims of abuse and some of them I've loved and called them my friends (and one of them my girlfriend). I can tell you neither of them would give a flying fuck about loli, or whatever "extreme" thing you've seen while posting. This is because this kind of people is either 1, strong and 100% over it (two girls I've known actually even enjoyed loli themselves) or 2, too busy dealing with their actual real issue every day and every second of their lives inside their heads to fucking care about what you call offensive or harmful.
Please, do not speak for them. Do not call whatever shit you have seen online "enough to traumatize" you. Do not pretend to understand what you know nothing about. You are being really, really disrespectful doing so, way more than anyone else here.
/seriousmode

Basically, this whole topic is a simple indirect kink-bashing under an imaginary excuse of "normalising" something, the thing you can see on those weird twitter accounts with kirby avatars whose day usually consists of going around and attacking people for enjoying the stuff they might consider problematic. I'm pretty sure the thoughtlessly hysterical stance of Funya is very harmful to humanity in general, a thing that leads to censoring any stuff the arbitrary hivemind doesn't like, an endless pitfall of sorts. You don't like certain themes and imagery? Avoid it. It's very easy to do nowadays. Making yourself look like a weird victim simply because you aren't capable of responsible consuption is such a childish thing to do that it doesn't deserve any real discussion. I am not interested in reading stuff like Euphoria, Starless or Maggot baits but that doesn't mean that community is somehow bad for liking those or that people should be banned from the discussion. The only possible advise here is to grow up and learn to differentiate reality from fiction.

Ugh, are we having yet another discussion about 2D vs 3D again or something...?
Is it really THAT difficult for people to keep their 2D mentality in check and not let that influence their thinking in real life? It's perfectly normal for a person to enjoy 2D loli stuff, and still want to beat the hell out of a real life pedophile.
Also, I mean, this is pretty much like "I find people killing each other gross and disgusting, so I will just boycott the whole movie community together".
It's perfectly normal for a person to have something they can't stomach. Doesn't mean they have to spread that hate to everything associated to it.
I can't handle NTR. That shit disgusts me. But I still enjoy everything else that is not NTR like normal.
It's not that people "normalized" this and that. People just learned to just, ignore things that they have no interest in and let the person be, that's all.

ban all porn tbh
 
and sex too, only lewd hand holding allowed

Fruitbat don't publish/license the game so I have only meant that even though they don't release 18+ games themselves, they should still bring to the Harukaze's attention (who are basically self-publishing the game) that there's a very eager audience for the original 18+ version and plenty of platforms to sell it on. Since, you know, it looks like Harukaze have no meaningful interaction with the western audience whatsoever. Nothing more, nothing less. 
I'd even say that I generally like Fruitbat, they have released plenty of cool non-ero VNs like Chuusotsu or Seabed, sustain a somewhat decent TL/tech quality and the only game of theirs that originally had ero got the 18+ release on behalf of JAST anyway so it's not like they robbed you of anything. I'm only salty that they didn't bring Eiyuu Senki to the vita back in the day. Boo.

Fruitbat don't publish/license the game so I have only meant that even though they don't release 18+ games themselves, they should still bring to the Harukaze's attention (who are basically self-publishing the game) that there's a very eager audience for the original 18+ version and plenty of platforms to sell it on. Since, you know, it looks like Harukaze have no meaningful interaction with the western audience whatsoever. Nothing more, nothing less. 
I'd even say that I generally like Fruitbat, they have released plenty of cool non-ero VNs like Chuusotsu or Seabed, sustain a somewhat decent TL/tech quality and the only game of theirs that originally had ero got the 18+ release on behalf of JAST anyway so it's not like they robbed you of anything. I'm only salty that they didn't bring Eiyuu Senki to the vita back in the day. Boo.

Fruitbat don't publish/license the game so I have only meant that even though they don't release 18+ games themselves, they should still bring to the Harukaze's attention (who are basically self-publishing the game) that there's a very eager audience for the original 18+ version and plenty of platforms to sell it on. Since, you know, it looks like Harukaze have no meaningful interaction with the western audience whatsoever. Nothing more, nothing less. 
I'd even say that I generally like Fruitbat, they have released plenty of cool non-ero VNs like Chuusotsu or Seabed, sustain a somewhat decent TL/tech quality and the only game of theirs that originally had ero got the 18+ release on behalf of JAST anyway so it's not like they robbed you of anything. I'm only salty that they didn't bring Eiyuu Senki to the vita back in the day. Boo.

Fruitbat don't publish/license the game so I have only meant that even though they don't release 18+ games themselves, they should still bring to the Harukaze's attention (who are basically self-publishing the game) that there's a very eager audience for the original 18+ version and plenty of platforms to sell it on. Since, you know, it looks like Harukaze have no meaningful interaction with the western audience whatsoever. Nothing more, nothing less. 
I'd even say that I generally like Fruitbat, they have released plenty of cool non-ero VNs like Chuusotsu or Seabed, sustain a somewhat decent TL/tech quality and the only game of theirs that originally had ero got the 18+ release on behalf of JAST anyway so it's not like they robbed you of anything. I'm only salty that they didn't bring Eiyuu Senki to the vita back in the day. Boo.

Based on how eroge companies generally operate regarding their western releases (especially when they have no "partner" to help them), I'd say simply asking them first would be the wise decision as japanese eroge pubs may not think of releasing a 18+ version for the most absurd reasons you can't even imagine in the right mind. Looking back, I'd even say they usually approach the release with the mentality of "of course we are going for the safe console version, why would we release porn in the wild west and ask for trouble?" and only then fans can sometimes manage to dissuade them. 
I have a very hard time believing that NoraNeko of all things (considering that all seiyuus in the game are the usual suspects) is exactly that legendary game which can't be released uncut due to the extreme licensing issues and it's not simply a case of "can't be bothered to go back to the basic preparations that late in the game". If there's no will, there obviously won't be a way. While true, it would be absurd to stall the steam release for another, say, six months simply because they didn't think of releasing 18+ version, it still means that if noone presses them about it, they'll just think that everything is marvellous and they are genious strategists. Especially since, as I understand it, they don't even look at the feedback, only Fruitbat does. Fruitbat that's not even releasing 18+ games to begin with.

Based on how eroge companies generally operate regarding their western releases (especially when they have no "partner" to help them), I'd say simply asking them first would be the wise decision as japanese eroge pubs may not think of releasing a 18+ version for the most absurd reasons you can't even imagine in the right mind. Looking back, I'd even say they usually approach the release with the mentality of "of course we are going for the safe console version, why would we release porn in the wild west and ask for trouble?" and only then fans can sometimes manage to dissuade them. 
I have a very hard time believing that NoraNeko of all things (considering that all seiyuus in the game are the usual suspects) is exactly that legendary game which can't be released uncut due to the extreme licensing issues and it's not simply a case of "can't be bothered to go back to the basic preparations that late in the game". If there's no will, there obviously won't be a way. While true, it would be absurd to stall the steam release for another, say, six months simply because they didn't think of releasing 18+ version, it still means that if noone presses them about it, they'll just think that everything is marvellous and they are genious strategists. Especially since, as I understand it, they don't even look at the feedback, only Fruitbat does. Fruitbat that's not even releasing 18+ games to begin with.

Based on how eroge companies generally operate regarding their western releases (especially when they have no "partner" to help them), I'd say simply asking them first would be the wise decision as japanese eroge pubs may not think of releasing a 18+ version for the most absurd reasons you can't even imagine in the right mind. Looking back, I'd even say they usually approach the release with the mentality of "of course we are going for the safe console version, why would we release porn in the wild west and ask for trouble?" and only then fans can sometimes manage to dissuade them. 
I have a very hard time believing that NoraNeko of all things (considering that all seiyuus in the game are the usual suspects) is exactly that legendary game which can't be released uncut due to the extreme licensing issues and it's not simply a case of "can't be bothered to go back to the basic preparations that late in the game". If there's no will, there obviously won't be a way. While true, it would be absurd to stall the steam release for another, say, six months simply because they didn't think of releasing 18+ version, it still means that if noone presses them about it, they'll just think that everything is marvellous and they are genious strategists. Especially since, as I understand it, they don't even look at the feedback, only Fruitbat does. Fruitbat that's not even releasing 18+ games to begin with.

Based on how eroge companies generally operate regarding their western releases (especially when they have no "partner" to help them), I'd say simply asking them first would be the wise decision as japanese eroge pubs may not think of releasing a 18+ version for the most absurd reasons you can't even imagine in the right mind. Looking back, I'd even say they usually approach the release with the mentality of "of course we are going for the safe console version, why would we release porn in the wild west and ask for trouble?" and only then fans can sometimes manage to dissuade them. 
I have a very hard time believing that NoraNeko of all things (considering that all seiyuus in the game are the usual suspects) is exactly that legendary game which can't be released uncut due to the extreme licensing issues and it's not simply a case of "can't be bothered to go back to the basic preparations that late in the game". If there's no will, there obviously won't be a way. While true, it would be absurd to stall the steam release for another, say, six months simply because they didn't think of releasing 18+ version, it still means that if noone presses them about it, they'll just think that everything is marvellous and they are genious strategists. Especially since, as I understand it, they don't even look at the feedback, only Fruitbat does. Fruitbat that's not even releasing 18+ games to begin with.

Just like most big eroges do. I'm pretty that they simply skipped the 18+ version during the planning stage and by now it's too much hassle to go back and re-negotiate anything for it. If it sells well they'll decide that they were right and we'll have a new Moenovel on our hands with (maybe?) a better TL quality. And if it bombs, they'll simply abandon the West as Harukaze aren't really invested in it yet. A true win-win situation.