Pabloc

Eh, even if their translation turns out to be decent enough and doesn't need any fixing (I kinda doubt that), this still means translating a Fandisk-quantity of vanilla H-scenes. That's a nope - KonoSora pretty much exhausted my vanilla-tolerance. XD

XD

Hahahaha... I'll say this right here - forget about any re-translations. I'm not touching anything by MoeNovel ever again, and I highly doubt you would find anyone else who is stupidly stubborn enough to stick with a project like that. IMHHW is the one and only title that has a realistic chance for getting a fan re-translation, otherwise that's just not gonna happen. If you don't want to see LOLcalization companies hiring the cheapest (and worst) "translators" available and feeding you censored, barely intelligible gibberish, vote with your wallet. Instead of buying crap targeted at the most illiterate people among the Steam crowd, support companies that actually give a damn about overall release quality. True. I'm almost certain it was """translated""" by multiple humans, MTs make different mistakes. But why would you do that, when you have Rikaichan/kun, MeCab and JParser?

What the heck are you talking about? I wasn't referring to anything that you said. You didn't bother to read what I quoted, did you? I actually agree with your points, that adding gameplay elements to VNs and turning them to hybrids or not-VNs-at-all isn't exactly a good way to make them popular anywhere.

There's a clearly visible line between the two - it's called "gameplay". Errr, no. They aren't exactly known for having the sharpest storylines (especailly Kamidori), their gameplay is their main selling point and it's the main reason why they are popular. Can hybrids like this make VNs more popular on the West anywhere? When VN-aspects are their weakest aspects and they are mainly enjoyable as SRPGs? Now, I like hybrids or pure games. There's nothing wrong with those genres. But when I'm in the mood for a VN, I won't touch a hybrid. Because I want to read, not play. When I see something advertised as a VN, I expect a VN. When the description promises a lot of gameplay and other non-VN features, either it isn't exactly a VN, or the description emphasizes insignificant mini-games too much and is misleading. But you generally don't call Swiss Army knives just "knives". Because they aren't just knives, they are multi-purpose tools. Would you pick one of those if you wanted specifically a knife? No - a dedicated knife will do a better job. You can advertise Swiss Army knife as "primarily a knife", but then you get something that actually kinda sucks at its "primary function" (compared to dedicated knives), so that's not a very good idea. Just like hybrid VNs aren't really that good at being "just VNs" (or are very bad, like Kamidori or Tears to Tiara for example). But they offer gameplay, and that's usually their main focus. While they don't really excel at anything, mixing aspects of multiple mediums can make them good as a whole (just like Swiss Army knives are great, even though their individual parts aren't that good). Black Sands either did a bad job at advertising a VN, or a good job at advertising a game (or a game/VN hybrid maybe?). I'd actually prefer if it was the latter - Western VNs suck most of the time, but we do a damn good job at making various indie games.

Why not both holes? At the same time. WITH TENTACLES! ALL THE WAY THROUGH!!! Mwahahaha! >:D

You are describing a lot of gameplay mechanics - explorations, quests, skill checks and so on. Like Lumaria already said, those elements are NOT part of the VN genre. What you wrote here sounds like a very typical RPG that has little to do with VNs. Kinda like some stuff made by Winterwolves... Make sure that you know what you are actually creating and label it properly. "Short chapters spanning no longer then 10 minutes each" is a perfectly acceptable description in case of a strategy game or even RPG, but it's a HUGE red flag in case of a VN. By mislabeling you work you can shoot yourself in the foot - you will create expectations for a "novel", and a "game" simply won't meet most of them, even if it's a damn good game. Also, you can't "revolutionize Western VN market" by not making a VN. That aside, I really like what you wrote in the "Relationships" part. While it's not THAT uncommon among Japanese VNs, I certainly wouldn't mind more titles that offer normal romance with serious rivalry and potential NTR. I'm not expecting much from the Western works in this genre though - it has much weaker impact without explicit sexual content. Even if you call it a "Visual Novel", people will still label it as an "OELVN". Japanese developers weren't explicitly calling their games "jRPG" - users made up this term. It happened because people simply found such distinction practical - it isn't really all about the country of origin, but more about different mechanics and storytelling style. The term "OELVN" was also created out of necessity. It's not used just to mark the original language - it's used because people find it useful a as warning about potential crap (since non-Japanese VNs are notoriously bad). It serves a very specific purpose, and non-Japanese VN will be labeled like that whether you like it or not. Also, while it's certainly a huge stigma (a well deserved one...), it's not a 100% bad thing - OELVN label significantly lowers expectations, so even something perfectly mediocre (like Katawa Shoujo) can gain a lot of recognition.

At least TRY to understand what I'm saying. I was asking why we didn't develop the VN genre in the 80's or 90's, independently form Japanese developers. Are Japanese people the only ones capable of discovering the VN genre? Do we have to "run into them" and "get a good impression", because we are incapable of developing new genres by ourselves? No - like I already said, we did attempt to make our own VNs. But they simply failed, so development of story-oriented games went in a completely different direction. Direction, that actually works on the West. That's why we are going with graphic adventure games, and that's why we became familiar with that medium, while the Japanese became familiar with VNs. VN community isn't even remotely relevant to what I'm talking about here. Japanese VNs became somewhat visible only recently. Up until that point, there was no VN community to speak of, and absolutely no bias against that medium - pretty much nobody knew about it. Nothing was stopping Western developers from creating their own text-based, novel-style digital gamebooks with visuals. Nothing, except for the lack of market for such works. Oh yeah, and what about VNs different from the typical otaku stuff that already exist? Those that don't have anime-style art, have different settings and/or more Western-style stroytelling? I mentioned 6 examples in this thread. For some mysterious reason, they aren't very popular outside of the VN community. Is this also only because of said community?

That's precisely what Western VN creators are doing right now - aiming their VNs at retarded weeaboos, because that's the safest audience. Targeting any kind of "safe" audience is the last thing you do when you are thinking of expanding any market. This is always a very risky business. "Try out Steam or Google play store"? Yeah, great advice. VN creators are already doing that for a while. And if stuff they put there isn't some otaku-pandering thrash, or an otome game very similar to Japanese titles, nobody cares about it. If The Seed will be successful, AND people will explicitly praise it as a reading experience, it may give a signal that there's a possible wider market for VNs. However, it can also spectacularly backfire - if several people will complain that it has too much reading and not enough gameplay, it will be a clear signal to developers to stay away from VNs (whether it's successful or not). If it was THAT simple, we would have a crapton of VNs already. Ask yourself a question - why VNs didn't appear on the West? There was the time when they didn't exist in Japan either. But they evolved from their adventure games, while our adventure games went in the opposite direction. Why we didn't create out own VNs back then, like it happened with RPGs and jRPGs? Was it because Western developers are dumb and they didn't come up with that idea? No - they actually tried to do something like that (Sinkha Project was already mentioned here). But it wasn't exactly popular, was it? Developers experimented with this genre long before Japanese pop culture spread on the West, but it just didn't work here. There are also choose-your-own-adventure books, with similar mechanics as VNs. There was a small boom for those, but this genre generally stayed as children's books and never managed to appeal to a wider audience. There were adventure gamebooks or solitaire role-playing adventures, but those genres also turned niche after a brief boom. Do we really have a potential market for VNs as a medium here? Or are Japanese VNs somewhat popular mainly because of their content, that just happens to fill the niches among Western fiction? I'm not sure, but I think interactive movies and such might have a brighter future here.

@Lumaria Correction - downsides AND: 1) explicit statement that I would like to see well-made Western VNs (that you dismissed as a lie), 2) summary of the evolution of VNs in Japan and a theory how they could realistically evolve on the West (that you ignored), 3) pointing out the risks that prevent bigger Western developers from creating high-quality VNs (that you ignored as well). Yeah, if you ignore 75% of what I write, you will be left only with downsides. Okay, I have no idea what are you talking about here. Is this about your claim that VNs lack diversity? If that's the case, then I just brought up 6 examples showing that VNs ARE quite diverse already, both Western ones and Japanese ones. Why they aren't more diverse? There are good reasons for that, and I already listed them (re-read the parts of my previous posts that you ignored). One of them is precisely what B0X0R mentioned - we are going more in the direction of interactive movies, like TWD or LiS, that most definitely are not novels. The new Sherlock Holmes series with that Cucumberbath dude (or something like that) did something kinda similar. They already did one Poirot anime - http://myanimelist.net/anime/244/Agatha_Christie_no_Meitantei_Poirot_to_Marple, but apparently it wasn't THAT bad (that reminds me I wanted to watch it someday). They must be text-based, written like novels, and have visuals?

@Lumaria I don't believe that you want to make VNs more accepted on the West. You're just a [insert random pejorative term] and that mindset makes you objectively less worthy of participating in a discussion. You didn't understand what I said, and misinterpreted everything. All things that you say are completely wrong. We can "discuss" things like that if you want, but I don't think it would be productive. I still don't get what exactly is your point here. More diversity? Yeah, that would be great. But... aren't VNs quite diverse already? Sure, most of them are worthless, generic moeges, but the same can be said about any other medium. Most of everything is crap. You say that I'm generalizing Westen culture (which is a misunderstanding on your part, as I did clarify that I only hate modern and mianstream Western culture - and yeah, I do find it worse than shit-grade Japanese anime/manga/VNs), but you are generalizing VNs yourself. Oh, you don't believe that I would love to see a Western VN? Then tell me, why did I actually like https://vndb.org/v10754, https://vndb.org/v11705 (adaptation of a story written by American writer), or https://vndb.org/v14125 (loose interpretation of a Russian fairytale)? And why I liked Japanese VNs that had unconventional setting (European-style setting in https://vndb.org/v22 is one of the important reasons why it's among my top 3 favorite VNs) or those that resemble Western fiction quite a bit (https://vndb.org/v183 - action-packed, dark cyberpunk, or https://vndb.org/v1390 - an Equilibrium fanfic)? I don't like generic moeges all that much, you know? I'm always looking for something original and interesting. Are the VNs I listed here, both Western ones and Japanese ones, not diverse? Are they ALL just some generic moege thrash? But yeah, I guess I'm just a big fat otaku liar, and I actually only want stereotypical moe waifus in generic VNs.

You were talking about making VNs "really popular" and "immediately popular" among Western audience, by creating ones that will be "approachable" by an "every day person" and "meant for that audience". You said this yourself, quite explicitly. But now you are saying that you just want them to be an "accepted medium"? They ARE an accepted medium already - they are even present on Steam, and non-Japanese creators have been making their own VNs for a while. I said quite a few times that I would love to see something different (like Battletech or Warhammer setting for example, obviously with fitting Western artstyle), and that the idea is indeed very promising. But I also explained why I think it's unlikely that something like this will be created anytime soon. And I did say why I think making VNs "really popular in the west" (your words) would be bad. But you simply dismiss everything I say as some "otaku thinking" or whatever, without actually addressing any of my arguments. Do you define real feedback as: "Yes Master! I 100% agree with your wise words!"?

But to make VNs "popular on the West", you have to create something that will become a "popular Western VNs". Otherwise, they will stay niche. Western VN creators could do what Palas said and target readers. Actually, that would be awesome - an average Western reader has a far better taste than an average JP otaku, who only wants moe waifus. I'm willing to bet that a good, high-budget Battletech-themed VN would have eaten Muv-Luv for breakfast. But I just don't see this happening. There's a very good reason why VNs evolved from games, not from books. To create a book, you need a talented writer. Every essential part is done by one person, others (editors, publishers etc.) only help. In case of VNs, you need a team (realistically speaking). Writer is essential, but if you want to make something decent, you need an artist too. And a programmer, to put everything together. Musician and voice actors would be ideal, too. Even "just" writing a good story is a considerable challenge, but in case of VNs, you have to deal with several other things. This process is comparable with a development of a videogame, but with main focus on writing instead of designing gameplay mechanics. So, while making VNs a natural evolution of e-books would be good for the medium, I think it probably won't happen that way. Why VNs are a thing in Japan, but not on the West to begin with? It's an element of much wider cultural differences, that led to different evolution of various videogame genres, like text-based adventure games. On the West, their evolution was focused on expanding puzzles and point-and-click gameplay elements, at the expense of writing and storylines. In Japan, this genre went in a completely opposite direction - it gradually lost gameplay elements, and was left with pretty much raw stroy (with choices). Similar thing happened with the development of the RPG genre - generally, Western RPGs are more focused on mechanics, while jRPGs are more focused on characters and storylines. Logically, a VN for Western audience should evolve from story-driven game genre. RPGs? No - they are going in a completely opposite direction. Maybe adventure games? TellTale-like stuff can seem like a promising sign. But while they do get rid of most gameplay mechanics and put more weight on storytelling, they don't go in the direction of interactive novels. They follow the patch to interactive movies. And that's what I think is realistic here - interactive movies that rely on cinematic elements to convey their stories. Not visual novels that rely mainly on writing. Saying that Western audience hates reading was obviously a huge exaggeration, but we generally tend to prioritize other aspects of media (like visuals or gameplay). So, I don't really see Western VNs evolving from either games or books. All that's left is adapting the existing JP genre. This could work (give me a good Battletech or Warhammer VN, and I'll gladly throw my money at it). But it's a very risky business - you already have established competition (in the form of professional Japanese VNs), so it will be hard to make something that could compete with it, without risking a considerable amount of money. This is a barrier that will be hard to break - it scares off professionals, and leaves only low-budget, amateur projects (that often make the same stuff as Japanese developers, only much worse). But there's an easy way to bypass this obstacle - catering to a "wider Western audience", like gamers for example, instead of much smaller groups like current VN fanbase or readers. I think it's the most realistic approach from the business perspective, but I already explained why I think it will be awful for the medium. VNs would have to be devolved to meet the expectations of an average gamer, and they would end up more like adventure games (with shortened storyline and added gameplay elements to make sure people won't get bored by too much reading). If general Western audience really wanted VNs, there's no reason why they wouldn't be widely popular already. But those that did appear in the past, ended up as some little curiosities, nothing else.

@Palas & Rooke Yeah, I did make a sweeping generalization there. But that's the picture I get when I look at the most popular games, movies and even some books. And it annoys me to no end, so I'm prone to exaggerating a little. Obviously, there's a much larger pool of avid readers on the West than in Japan. Some of them already read VNs and others stick to books because they don't like the VN as a medium. Those who either aren't aware of VNs or don't like certain aspects of JP VNs specifically (ero, highschool romance and so on), are the potential new audience for Western reader-targeted VNs. But it's a relatively small group (and like Rooke mentioned, largely female), not exactly something I would label as "wider Western audience". And hey, guess what? There are plenty of OELVN otome games, and some of those seem comparable with their JP counterparts (I can't say much since I didn't read them, but just look at http://zeiva.net/otome/area_x_story.html - just something I picked completely at random). But... I'm a guy. I'm open-minded and I can read something targeted at female audience, I don't mind gender-neutral stuff at all, but I do like things aimed at guys (duh). That's one of the reasons why I usually don't enjoy typical Western romance stories all that much, and I have more fun reading a generic charage (even if it's objectively a bit worse). I do like Western storytelling - I have read far more Western stories than JP ones in any medium after all (what I was complaining about was the popular, mainstream storytelling - I should have specified this), but I find the Japanese approach to certain things a bit more interesting (well, that's why I got into anime in the first place). Those are some of the reasons why I don't exactly like the concept of "popular Western VNs". When it comes to popular garbage, I simply prefer the Japanese stuff by far. They don't neglect story THAT much. Even Naruto or some thrashy ecchi-harem-bullshit has a basic plot and characterization, that occasionally even make some sense. Popular, high-budget Western movies or games? Screw story, fuck logic, have some explosions (yes, a sweeping generalization again - there are some exceptions on both sides ). A lot of people don't have a problem with this, but I simply can't turn off my brain and enjoy stuff that makes no sense whatsoever (even in case of nukiges...). Again, I certainly wouldn't mind a Western-style story written in a VN format, but I don't think this is something I'd label as a "popular VN". Yeah, they don't have to be story-heavy. Actually, most RPGs have rather basic storylines, and they work just fine. But that wasn't my point. Fallout in particular WAS story-heavy and reading-heavy. I was talking specifically about this aspect of RPGs. Story-heavy and text-heavy titles are getting pushed aside, into kinda niche and/or indie territory. This usually means crappy graphics and low production values in general (like you pointed out in case of Avadon). Because budget and professional resources are pumped into things that are popular (= sell more). Shuffle has worse writing than B movies, but MUCH better than new Star Wars. Come on, the script of that movie is a writing disaster. Chaotic, nonsensical, inconsistent, filled with awfully written characters, plagued with ridiculous dei ex machina, has the dumbest MacGuffin I have seen in a while, and it's as unoriginal as it gets. Honestly, even the crappy, generic moeges can offer something better. But I'll leave it at that, I don't want to write a huge rant about it.

@Lumaria Can a Western VN be good? Of course it can. It's just a storytelling medium, not something that cannot work outside of Japan. Can a Western VN, created in this modern day and aimed at wider Western audience, be good? No, I don't think so. The main problem with the wider Western audience, is that it kinda hates reading. People don't want complex storylines (or storylines at all). They want simplicity, random explosions and action. Japanese audience has it's own issues (you know, moe and stuff), but those aren't critical for the genre itself. Above everything else, VNs are novels. Not games (like Ace Attorney, that's 100% adventure game). They are all about the story, characters, and writing (and/or porn in some cases). Choices are supposed to serve the story, allow more branches and so on. They are not the key element by themselves. Good VN requires a good writer. It can have simple art, generic music, no voice acting or no choices - as long as it doesn't look/sound horrible and the story delivers, it will be decent (just one random example - https://vndb.org/v103). The problem with Western VN scene and audience is the severe lack of good writers, and the very low demand for good writing, respectively. The fixation of VN creators on Japanese themes (as already mentioned) is only a secondary problem - a good writer familiar with Japanese culture can write such a setting just fine (Katawa Shoujo completely failed at this, but for example https://vndb.org/v10754 has Japanese setting that actually works). I think that making VNs aimed for a wider Western audience is a step in the WRONG direction in this regard. Like I said, reading isn't exactly "popular" on the West. Contrary to what you said, RPG genre starts relying on text less and less. Look at Fallout 4 - this extremely dumbed-down shooter is what counts as """"RPG"""" these days. Mainstream movies are even worse - Hobbit, Star Trek reboot, Star Wars: The Farce Awakens - those films made craploads of $$$, even though their plots (in case of The Hobbit - parts that weren't in the original book) make much, MUCH less sense than a script from a shitty nukige raped by Google Translate. But people don't mind that - apparently the majority will swallow everything, as long as it's filled with lens flares and CGI, and random shit constantly explodes. I sure don't want one of my favorite mediums to get dumbed-down to meet the extremely low standards of modern Western storytelling. That would make actually readable stuff even more niche than it is today, with all those generic moeges flooding the market (though after watching the new Star Wars, something like Shuffle suddenly seems like a great literary masterpiece...). There's one more issue. Can a VN meant for a wider Western audience contain explicit sexual content? Or any themes that are not 100% politically correct? VNs can have both decent stroyline and explicit sex. All those generic moeges feature romance that doesn't end at holding hands. And those are usually kinda crappy VNs where sex can be written quite poorly. But there are also plenty of titles (usually not translated) that feature both interesting storylines and well-written, fitting sex-scenes. Including extremely dark and hardcore scenes that don't appear anywhere else (save for ero-mangas). Porn with plot is something almost exclusive to the VN medium (some ero-mangas have solid stories, but those are rather rare). But you can't do this on the West, if you want to target wider audience. Even pure porn, like Sakura series, can't have actually explicit sexual content. That's my problem with Western culture - it makes too many interesting topics a taboo. It's too "safe" and politically correct (as long as things aimed at general audience are concerned, there are niche things, but that's beside the point). I would certainly welcome Western VNs breaking those dumb restrictions (without turning into a copypasta of JP themes). I'm not interested in VNs aimed at general Western audience. Well, I'm not exactly interested in typical moeges made for general otaku audience either, but that's a different story. In short - I like the concept of a Western VN that's well written, has high quality Western-style artwork, and music, features original characters and themes rarely present in JP titles, and that doesn't succumb to stupid cultural restrictions and political correctness. But I highly doubt anything like that will be created anytime soon.

Can't spell "slaughter" without "laughter".

I have only seen one VN that was kinda like this - https://vndb.org/v14922. But unlike most traps, who seem to be cross-dressing just for comedic and/or fetish reasons, Toboso was written much more seriously (as much as surreal guro VN allowed), and was actually suffering from sexual identity disorder with all the related drama (and not only that). But this VN probably shouldn't count, because (moderate spoiler): For a more typical VN with one trap "heroine", I will definitely read https://vndb.org/v9175 someday. I dislike "fake-yuri" VNs - those that have a typical Yuri setup, except with a cross-dressing guy as a protagonist (like Otoboku). That's just a blasphemy. Otherwise, I don't mind trap protagonists, or traps in general. They are neutral to me (though maybe I'd classify trap x trap stuff as "somewhat interesting"). As for reverse-traps - I don't like them. Outside of H-scenes they look and act like dudes, so with male protagonist, their routes kinda have gay-vibes most of the time, and with female protagonist - they reduce the overall "yuriness". Reverse-trap as a protagonist (https://vndb.org/v6680) seems like an interesting idea though.

Then you should be fine with guro and everything - because those fetishes don't involve actual murder. Only fictional one. And yeah, finding sexual pleasure in brutally killing and mutilating someone is wrong. In real life. Not in fiction - because you don't actually murder anyone there. Fictional fetishes are completely separate from RL fetishes. Fetish for getting raped exists pretty much exclusively in fiction and sexual roleplay. No actual victim enjoys serious rape in RL. NTR fetish (in fiction) doesn't meant that you would automatically like seeing your partner cheating on you IRL. Gay porn with traps is designed to appeal to heterosexual men. And so on. Seeing people die in fiction makes you experience completely different emotions than seeing people die IRL. Those two experiences aren't even remotely similar. Hence, even if you find the former fappable, it has absolutely no relation to with the latter. Same with killing people in videogames and murdering people in RL. Two completely different things. Even if you enjoy games, that doesn't mean you would be even capable of actually murdering someone, not to even mention enjoying it.

^ And what if someone likes both guro and lolis?

Meh, I never tried Dustmania, because it seems like Uziga Waita style guro - on the one hand, it's far too silly to have any real impact, and on the other hand it's far to crude to be funny. Though considering that this VN was written by the person responsible for Dual Phase, I'm pretty sure it's much more crappy than UW's mangas... As usual, context and storyline are the most important here. Without those, it's just a brainless slasher - instead of being disturbing, it's funny (at best, usually it's just stupid). CYCLET's stuff is definitely leagues better. Their VNs have some story and surprisingly solid characterization (to the point that https://vndb.org/v14922 has a bit too much story to be classified as a nukige). That's what makes them interesting (and potentially much more disturbing than silly stuff like Dustmania).

Well... it's an OELVN. The chances of finding something readable among them are somewhere around 0,001%.

And this helps Android users how? OP obviously thinks that Kamaitachi no Yoru was never translated, but it is- I was just pointing that out, I'm still pissed that there's no Android version of Banshee's Last Cry. Well, technically speaking, it's not translated - it's localized. Or maybe I should say - heavily Americanized? Kinda like Phoenix Wright/Gyakuten Saiban series. In case of Phoenix Wright, while some things seem off occasionally, it's still kinda fun in it's totally altered version. As for Kamaitachi no Yoru... No idea - since it's heavily based on Japanese folklore, I didn't touch the butchered I mean - localized version, and decided to read the original instead... someday.

Yeah, that video met my expectations. What he said is actually true, but only for Western porn games. They are all shit, almost no exceptions. That's why I like Japanese eroge (not limited to VNs). Also, that's one of the reasons why I hate all that Sakura crap. Its """quality""" is similar to crude Western porn (well... because it is crude Western porn), but retards bring it up as an example of a Japanese eroge.

J-List or other shops that import physical stuff from Japan do have to cover all those fees you mentioned, hence prices there are naturally higher than for example on Amazon.jp. Western publishers, like SP, aren't "importing" anything - they are licensing and releasing VNs themselves. Their products no longer "come from Japan". The only import/shipping fees to speak of, are between the publisher and the client - and those are not included in the price. Of course, this Clannad is a digital release, so it doesn't have any shipping costs to begin with. Western releases of VNs are (were?) almost always much cheaper than Japanese equivalents, because almost all Western publishers know that Japanese prices are simply too high for a typical Western customer.

@Mkilbride Art is a subjective thing, just like the fact it's a slice-of-life story. I'm not a big fan of Itaru's artstyle myself, but I'd place it slightly above that shiny, plastic skin from Sakura series. Besides, it's mainly a novel, art is just an addition (Higurashi and Umineko originally had 100x worse art, but they became very popular anyway). Also, Clannad stays among top 10 most popular and highest rated titles on VNDB for years, it isn't popular exclusively in Japan. As for the original assets, their resolution doesn't affect the expenses of the Western publisher - they have to pay license costs all the same. The point is that you are getting a version that is far superior than the original release from 11 years ago. This doesn't change the fact that similarly improved physical copy of Clannad in Japan costs less than 50$. Their prices are always a little bloated, so when the same VN on the West is more expensive, something is wrong.