Chronopolis

出る杭を打つ is drawn from a Japanese saying that is basically the opposite of the American saying 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease'.  He is taking an even larger risk than Sanahtlig is hinting at by saying this.  Japanese companies in general do not take kindly to their employees putting the company out there on a limb, and the industry already suffered badly as a whole from the infamous Rapelay incident and a number of follow-up incidents. 
 
I don't think those of us over here can really comprehend the pressures the average Japanese companies are under.  For one thing, social pressure can turn into economic pressure with alarming swiftness over there.  For another, Japan is reliant enough on other countries' trade for its survival that these kind of scandals overseas can cause hysterical reactions from their lawmakers.  The eroge industry, being a niche industry by nature, is vulnerable to crackdowns in a way that the car and food production industries aren't.  Since eroge are basically a guilty pleasure and a luxury, there are plenty of lawmakers that wouldn't see a problem with doing away with them if it meant they could improve their own chances of remaining in office.  It isn't like they are universally accepted, even by otakus... so before you criticize eroge-makers for being 'xenophobic', you should at least try to see the bind they are in.

Because it only takes one "scandal" for everything to be destroyed. And trust me the West is the best at coming up with scandals.

There's demands by fans, but over here you also have all the people who turn games into a political thing and would likely attack many of Japan's games to fill their political agenda.

The west is plagued by people that work for the sole sake of running their mouths over every little thing and turn it into a national issue. Because they have nothing else to do with their lives but to complain, otherwise they have no jobs. Eroge becoming popular here would be like building a huge bait for them.

I'll say it again, all it takes is one game to get enough attention to make the whole company come crumbling down.

We have nothing but our own culture to blame.

I just read your article on the lewdgamer website. I completely agree that censoring a nukige is stupid and does not deserve to be rewarded with a purchase. That's just as dumb as buying a porno where all the sex scenes were cut out. Which in my view is just as dumb as watching an ecchi anime (you might as well go with full blown hentai). But I think Steam's censorship polices can be good for VNs in the long term. Thanks to the censorship policies story based VNs are starting to sell better than nukige focused ones (I think that's what you alluded to in the article). 
 
With Steam as a tool to expand the market, we can reasonably hope to see more story based VNs get localized. And hopefully even see higher quality OELVNs get developed. 

I found Shin Sekai Yori very interesting because it presents a compelling security dilemma: In a world where a single person can kill hundreds of thousands of innocents with a single thought, how does society respond?  Psycho Pass's solution (Psycho Pass aired the same season) is a police state, where crimes are prosecuted essentially before they are even conceived by measuring a person's temperament (their potential to commit a crime).  Shin Sekai Yori's solution is genetic manipulation and rigorous childhood brainwashing to suppress violent tendencies, with systematic elimination of deviants that these measures fail to control.
 
I find this theme fascinating because it won't be long before we as a species face a similar dilemma.  Imagine a world where nuclear devices become concealable in a suitcase and fissionable material is as easy to come by as traditional explosives.  A single deranged individual could wipe out an entire city and make it uninhabitable for years more.  As a society, how will we deal with that threat?  My bets are on the police state solution.  Expect agencies like the US National Security Agency (NSA) to grow increasingly powerful as weaponry becomes increasingly advanced, to the point that even letting a single psychopath slip through could result in unacceptable economic damage and loss of human life.  And at that point--who will watch the Watchers?

VN's are the greatest at immersion I feel. With the elements of visuals, music, voices combined with loads of text you get a great result. I find it a lot easier to get into a vn than I do a book most of the time.
Although I read books at a regular basis. The main reason I do that is for trying out different genres and classics that might have a intellectual value. But I don't feel so immersed in them, nor do I enjoy them as much.
 
The best vn's imo are those who combine both interesting ideas and a great story with the immersion of the visual novel medium. It's like you can have your cake and eat it too for me.
 
Even though I like having both, I can enjoy the immersion of being inside a good story. Hananono felt was somewhat like this. I enjoyed the most the interesting setting around the protag, as well as I found discussions with Ouka and things surrounding her. But the drama and story was the majority of the vn, and ofc I enjoyed that as well. But not as much as the latter.