Antera

Considering that Cabbit willing to trust their 'overseas transplant' to SG twice it's easy to see that Cabbit here probably did almost bankrupt, and therefore they probably seek the easiest way to go overseas quickly. Too bad though that Hanokiwa here is licensed by SG, but it's not like that we couldn't move on from that, considering that there's a lot of good releases out there. Of course it's understandable if we worry that SG might become bigger and somehow managed to license something like Fate or White Album 2 (Yeah I knew it's very extreme situation), but I think rather than worry about that I guess we should be more focused on the current situation.
PS - Actually SG could be partnered with either Mangagamer or JAST (Even Sekai is fine) if they want to expand overseas, just like Hikari Field with Nekonyan. But I guess they want to be independent there.

Revolutionizing visual novels huh? What, is it going to be set in something other than a high school?

if this is based on the dc version i´ve played years ago then some of the dialogue is still there, no actual porn, but nuances & indications of what´s happening (game been 18+ as well). anyhow i don´t get them people, like this one is mecha, with its plot revolving around existential crisis & whatnot - also pretty much made clear from the beginning - so if its already dark, then some possible rape/ntr shouldn´t feel out of place. sure both aren´t to anyones taste, but even if i were one of those, i´d rather have it that way then some forcibly patched together happy-go-lucky crap. not everything needs to be fluffy as fuck.

A heroine is still a slut even if i hold ctrl over her ntr h-scenes. 

There isn't just a lack of horror VN's, there is a lack of story VN's in general. Most VN developers seem to stick to an annual release cycle nowadays, because a longer development time is usually too expensive and risky. And creating a 'good' story VN with decent length in just one year is almost impossible to do, especially since you also need a skilled writer for that. But a typical slice of life VN with little to no plot, but backed up by some decent H-scenes can be easily produced in one year and you don't necessarily need a particular talented writer for it - just a good artist. And story VN's often don't sell that well, which is another problem.
Just look at Innocent Grey's list of releases on VNDB. KnS1 and especially KnS2 did take several years to make, but with their yuri series Flowers, they changed to a fixed annual release cycle as well, while KnS3 is in development for probably more than five years now. It's not hard to guess that they use Flowers to finance KnS3. And Innocent Grey is already one of the more popular story VN producers. Others like Propeller already did bite the dust.
There's probably a better chance for shorter story/horror VN's like Saya no Uta nowadays, but that doesn't change the fact that some cheaply produced moeges still sell even better.

Issue with Germany is about lack of proper age verification on Steam - from what I read you need a third party, reliable system to legally sell porn in Germany, to make sure it can't be purchased by minors - not the kind of law that many companies would care about, knowing how internet works, but I imagine both Valve and publishers would rather play it safe at this point. 

I wrote up a full article in response to the latest stunning developments.

Sanahtlig's Corner: Valve opens Steam to uncensored eroge and hentai games
Steam is now selling hardcore uncensored porn games. This has profound implications for eroge fans, developers, publishers, and distributors.

I agree with the option being hidden God-knows-where, but if I remember well searches and clicking links to 18+ games give proper feedback ("we've hidden an n-number of games because of your search preferences"). There will be a significant transition period, but I'd expect A LOT of people having 18+ content turned on after its over. 
Plus, it seems that all-ages + patch might still be a viable option, circumventing the "adult-only" categorization, but letting you place the 18+ patch as DLC directly on the platform. Less porn-centric VNs could still benefit from the full potential of Steam exposure, while the adult content DLC would be free to download for everyone interested without the current kind of cryptic BS.

Steam now allows adult content, therefore, RIP all adult content-

Melty's Quest does indeed contain a lot of fetishistic stuff. It's among the most hardcore stuff I've played (even if I skipped most of it). If this is allowed, I'd say just about all normal Japanese VNs should be allowed in, so long as they aren't nukige or trying to be messed up. And even those might be allowed depending on the content and the actual standards Valve are following, if any.
At least, that's what currently seems to be the case. There is not particular guarantee they'll keep to this, but I'm an optimist. I'd like to think this will usher in a whole new side to Steam.

This is everything my 16 year old self ever fucking wanted, holy fuck.
http://www.siliconera.com/2018/09/11/too-kyo-games-is-led-by-danganronpa-staff-and-zero-escape-series-creator/
Staff includes Kodaka, Masafumi Takada (Danganronpa's composer), Takumi Nakuzawa (who worked on Ever17 and directed Root Double), and Kotaro Uchikoshi (Ever17, Zero Escape).
http://www.siliconera.com/2018/09/11/too-kyo-games-first-projects-are-an-anime-and-a-couple-games-including-a-death-game-for-kids/
First project's being written by Uchikoshi and Kodaka (holy fuck) and has a theme of Extreme vs. Despair.
Concept art: 
Second project is an anime written by Kodaka and directed by Pierrot.
Concept art: 
Third project is a “A death game of children, by children, for children." (credit for the phrase goes to Siliconera)
Concept art: 
Fourth project is a "reasoning adventure" in a Too Kyo - Spike Chunsoft crossover.
Concept art: 
Credit for all info, art and wording goes to Siliconera (the two linked articles).
 

Well here is their mature content description
Negligee: Love Stories features story-lines that frequently include sexual themes and through them illustrations featuring nudity, undressing and sexual interactions. Including single partner and multiple partner imagery. Sexual interactions between men and women as well as women and women are depicted. The game also features a story relating to nymphomania.
 
From this it seems like it will include sex between men and women not just yuri, also considering one of the stories relates to nymphomania I would assume that it isn't super vanilla

So, Dharker apparently got final thumbs up to publish their new eroge with all content intact. It's hard to say how explicit it will actually be, but if it follows the first game closely, it's going to at least contain a bunch of fully-explicit f/f sex scenes - and considering that some of the heroines are bisexual (two of them, if I remember well) and the screenshots, we might even get some straight hentai too. If that's true... Well, this would be unlike anything Steam even considered allowing in the past.

>Not having the superior Eien no Aselia

 
Also want more nitroplus as well

Thanks, and we are working on it. There should be some nice news soon.

JAST USA RPG sale: https://jastusa.com/sale

I'm waiting for the all-ages version of Euphoria and Starless. 

Not at all, he is just very busy and hence translates, well, slowly. Which saddens me immensely when MG sometimes gives him games that are pretty long like Da Capo 3.
Just like every decent business also usually has release windows and timeframes, not simply announcing release dates a month or several weeks prior, you are completely missing the point.
I'm also tired of repeating that I'm not hating on MG, people always react painfully at these small personal opinions concerning the company. I love MG for what they've done for the scene and won't start hating on them without a reason even if someday they'll end up completely disregarding plotge/eroge in favor of nukige, otome, yuri and BL.

I just got this game. First thoughts ... I'm really digging this. It's a really flowing, light read and they've done a great job with the translation. It makes me think Nekonyan will be right up my alley.

Indeed. The main differences between NekoNyan and MangaGamer are two:
NekoNyan is public about everything they're doing. Up until now, from the moment they announced a title we've always known what they were doing with it and what stage it is at. MangaGamer does have schedules, but we often don't know what they're doing. Once a title disappears from their sporadic project updates on twitter, lord knows what happens to them. Maybe they're stuck in tech work, maybe they're stuck in licensing stuff, we don't know. We might hear stuff from some of their freelancers, but otherwise...
But MangaGamer does keep to a schedule and steady releases. It's just that this schedule involves holding onto stuff that's already finished and ready to release just to space out releases, something NekoNyan has avoided doing (mostly due to their relatively small size and how there's been thus far little overlap in the time they finish projects, meaning they haven't finished projects around the same time yet).
The other difference is their age. I'm very happy people are positive about NekoNyan, but there is frankly very little to judge them by as of yet. How will they react if suddenly something goes wrong with engine work? Or if the Japanese developers change their mind about something near release? Or if mishaps occur due to performing translation, editing, and QA simultaneously (Fureraba was effectively riddled with typos, even if I loved the overall translation work).
They way MangaGamer reacts to this kind of thing tends to be simple: Radio silence, but let's release something else from our backlog instead. They're sitting on top of some finished products and spacing them out in such a way that they can switch their schedule on the fly without having to announce particular delays. Consider ChuuableSoft's games: SukiSuki disappeared from their sporadic updates after TL and Editing was finished, as happens to most of their titles, but then we knew nothing about it for months. In the meantime, ChuuableSoft itself declared bankruptcy (or something similar?)! However, since MangaGamer doesn't announce anything about their projects until about a month before release, it's as if nothing happened. SukiSuki was simply one more of the titles they are piling up on their backlog and biding their time to release.

Actually, for some they already are, if you look at the discussions, especially after MG's "big shift" away from the galge market in recent years.
It's probably too soon to say this but I'm also surprised that I feel like they are quickly becoming one of the best contenders on the market. Tight release schedule, actual release windows with which they seem to follow through, good announcements. I wasn't terribly excited about the first batch but Hello Lady and AoKana are as top-tier as it gets, save for something like FSN, KKK or SnU. Plus NekoNyan, despite the excessively silly name, seem like literally the only eroge localization company to plan things through. Hopefully they can keep it up, sell well and deliver. 

Another good news is that Chinese localizers are willing to cooperate with English ones. Who knows maybe soon we will have SakuraGames & Sekai duo 

SG+Sekai+Moenovel combines their power to destroy visual novels outside of Japan.

No matter how you look at it, those are two very notable announcements, I think having way more weight than any of the moege they licenced previously. If they can keep the quality high, they're on the right path to becoming everyone's second favourite VN localizer, just after MG. :3

I'm starting to hate that new marketinig trend, when there are teasers to teasers to teasers. It isn't limited to games, BTW...
 
SolPress - release Yotsunoha and Sakura Sakura first Some people are waiting for them, you know...