finiteHP

https://www.google.ca/search?q=cute+boys+with+brown+hair&tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSmQEJO1V_1S56CSGgajQELEKjU2AQaBggFCBcIPQwLELCMpwgaYgpgCAMSKLMa8xr5D-of-A_1yGv8fuBqEGbIahyW5Lt06si6NO-Mv3jq6JeQvgjAaMP457EC_1FqZu6RnmbHmfIFYxjANAgtJ3tCbwXcb1fq6kLyJUuYhlfGQu1K2AcEg6vSAEDAsQjq7-CBoKCggIARIEVU1qzgw&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4roq79oPQAhVF7YMKHSySAccQ2A4IHCgB&biw=1920&bih=950#imgrc=_

Nice to meet you, Grae Taylor/فهد/Ryan Grey/"Dman"/Kyle Michaels/Cole/Morgan Clayton/"cute tumblr boy".

Considering that there aren't really any even remotely "ugly" heroines in VNs, personality is always the primary factor, tbh.

I have no interest in Grisaia, so I'm probably not picking this up.
That being said, releasing this before Eden in the West is probably a really bad idea. Episodic games in general seem to be what Japanese companies think we want, despite the fact their performance over here is never very good, with the exception of When they Cry.
I just hope the whole "short $9.99" VN thing dies out soon; it's counter-intuitive to the history and the structure of the medium. The only way to sell visual novels to the majority of Steam users is by making glorified nukige, then bribing some popular streamers to play it. Anything else will just alienate both Steam users and the core audience that actually buys the games.

I can guarantee you this is not the case!

Probably. It'll be, like, in English and stuff! All of a sudden the Japanese original will go, like, poof! Ruined!

Steam wasn't designed to be a platform for books, or any of that sort in the first place, so the normal gamers -- which Steam audience is mostly comprised of -- will, of course, complain about the prices of VNs: how they can cost up to the same amount as some AAA-titles, how they're "just books with pretty pictures and occasional animay tiddies", and how 'weeb' it is to the majority. This much is a given.
As for VNs getting into Steam, that's wonderful, in my opinion. That means that more Japanese devs get interested in the Western market, which in return, means more games get localized and more regular, English-only speaking VN audience gets to read more, and sometimes, better VNs. If you think this is "bad", it is extremely counter-productive, and you come off as a total and utter dickbag.
In the first place, Western VNs are starting to find their own direction instead of copying regular VNs, so the "muh eltist VNs are SO much better"-argument really doesn't hold the same weight to it anymore, sounds really ignorant, or just plain stupid in the first place. They aren't copying off regular VNs, they're co-existing with them, as a separate thing entirely.
And to top it all off, that kind of mindset is extremely close-minded and old-fashioned. You cherry-pick information, like with the Western VNs having the ONLY bad games in the first place, but we both know that's far from the truth, and that double-standardising is quite hard to look at. Hard-copies are a subjective matter, so for someone, like myself, who doesn't care about physical copies, that argument is completely worthless, and VNs are akin to games in that matter that they're intellectual property made to be sold; if someone doesn't want to pay the amount it costs due to personal reasons -- like no H-scenes, it costs too much, or that it's just too short -- they can, and it won't make them any less deserving of "playing VNs". The frame of mind that Japanese VNs are superior in every shape and form, and that Western VNs can't adapt and evolve, always staying as the scum of the earth, is the kind of conservative, elitist mindset that is extremely cancerous and doesn't help anyone; change is ever-present, you can't hide from it, and completely shutting it off comes off as extremely asinine. 
If you really want to stay as that ignorant Japanese-only elitist, go to 4chan, they might welcome you.

Fuwanovel in a nutshell: "We hate Sakura games, but we can't stop talking about them anyway. "

You propably never heard of womanizers or casanovas. What vn's often tend to miss are guys (and gals), who are good with women, but not in a lame, cliched sort of way and it's the kind of stuff we should see in vn's more often. We have either shitty perverts and all sorts of moral degenerates somehow winning over gals' hearts, or girls who fall for protags, just to have sex with them. Where are the true knights - real gentlemen - who'd be around them, not as predators, but companions, willing to go to any lengths to please them, make their lives brighter? Showering them with flowers, throwing their coats under their feet, willing to make sacrifices and protect them. I swear, japanese scenario writers are unable to write anything decent, that doesn't involve massive trope hyperboles.
That aside, there's nothing wrong with a bit of pervyness an every man is a pervert to an extent, otherwise humanity would be already extinct
 

Oh please.  You actually believe people when they tell you that?  That's like people saying they're only reading the magazine for the articles ...

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear (and I hope this doesn't sound rude), but nobody from Frontwing posted anything on 4chan.  I have no idea who made the /v/ thread (the OP of which was a screencap of a tweet from someone else who did an article about us asking on Facebook and Reddit), but it absolutely wasn't anyone here.  We didn't even make the thread on Reddit, I just posted in the weekly questions thread and then sanahtlig was kind enough to create a dedicated thread for us (on their own recognizance).  Just want to set the facts straight, mostly because I don't want it to look like we're being overly aggressive in promotion or anything like that.

Nah, I didn't even find out about the /v/ thread until after it was archived.  I only really brought it up in the first place because I was surprised people there cared/were interested enough for there to be a 500+ post thread about it.
As I said to someone else on Twitter, I of course take everything on 4chan with a heaping pile of salt, but at the same time it is part of my job to monitor community feedback, so I felt obligated to at least give it a skim.

I always knew Rubik's Cubes were evil and bent on world domination
Everyone made fun of me for it, but I knew...
Nice, entertaining review. +1

Well, if you guys are digging through /v/ for quality feedback chances are you’re not using a big enough shovel.
Here try using this instead  
 

Yes, ‘free’ …
I feel that word deserves more inverted commas to get the tone across. Let me give it another go:
Yes, ‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘free’’’’’’’’’’’

I think one problem Frontwing is going to run into is that the western market doesn't need to see every VN localized. The western fanbase generally reacts well to VNs that sold well/are well-regarded/have a good reputation in Japan. In that AMA Frontwing said that they have hopes to localize every VN of theirs. Honestly, that's a waste of time. They should be focusing on localizing their works that are actually good (or thought of as good by Japanese buyers). Western fans don't react to brands like Japanese fans do, and they won't buy every VN out of loyalty—especially if it has a negative reputation. Bringing over any and every VN will just saturate the market further, probably to the point where a company would even be competing with itself by releasing so many VNs. The western market isn't nearly big enough to support the number of releases that Japan does.
Corona Blossom doesn't look like a VN that needed to come over to the west before Japan. I think they should be content with their Indiegogo campaign doing as well as it did (they plan on doing more for the rest of the series), and hope that their sales will even out once all the volumes are released.
Also, having to buy a patch on a third party site like dlsite is a big deterrent. I'm glad I got a code from being a backer because I don't think I'd be willing to give out my payment information to a site I never use.

TBH if I wanted an episodic VN for 10 bucks, my first inclination would be to skip over Corona Blossoms AND Supipara and get this instead:
 
 
The screenshots by themselves generate a wonderfully visceral atmosphere, I can feel it coming off the screen, and the description emphasises their primary hook - choice and consequence. 

I like that they are so honest with it. Actually, I don't really think they did something particular wrong here, the situation has simply changed. The same thing is happening on Kickstarter too.
MangaGamer has already reported several times now that since the whole Steam hype started, they got a lot of new account creations, most likely from Steam customers. So the Steam customers who were really interested in VN's have already moved on and went to the retail sites of the big VN publishers like MangaGamer and Jast. It tells a lot that the several year old nukiges Eroge and ImoPara are almost permanently in the top five for ages now. And the Steam users who didn't really get warm with VN's are less likely to buy another one. So the 'Steam only' customer group got much smaller either way.
And while newer VN customers are now happily digging through MG's and Jast's game libraries, the older VN veterans just don't get enough from a short and simple title like Corona Blossom, especially with so many quality titles released by MG and Sekai. In principle, it happened what most people wanted, quality and a known and popular brand matters now much more than before.
Or in short words: Welcome to the world of competition!

One thing to appreciate, at least Frontwing is engaging with fans, trying to see what they can do differently. They did this with Sharin no Kuni, and are going to bring back the KS after making changes, and now this. Just this bit of outreach can do wonders for a company's image cough cough 

I'm surprised they are releasing it since they already print money with the Metal Gear pachinko machines.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=737196788
Well we in space now bois.

Back then Fuwanovel indeed didn't deserve respect. I've pirated things in the past, and I would not expect anyone to treat me with respect for having done so, either. Pirates do not deserve to be handled with respect, period. We've been working hard to earn the respect we deservedly lacked for years of torrent use and you can't use that past as a weapon to invalidate the arguments being made here.

There's no way the 18+ version of a game like KaraKara is sold for $10, none of the major VN companies would ever do that. Instead of making every version of the game cost the same, SP decided to give a cheaper option for people who want less content.
EA sells games for the standard $60 and then sells DLC on top of that, that's a different story.

Yeah, I don't like both their attitudes to be honest. It just reflects more poorly on Dovac because of the position he holds.
He's not taking it down unless he's asked in a specific way? There's a difference between asking for respect and playing around.

Should make this the Sekai Project motto.