Wahfuu

Hmm, haven't finished one in awhile. Rewrites quickly becoming my second favorite product by Key though. I was expecting all the shounen shenanigans to annoy me far more then it actually does. Doesn't bother me at all, actually. Last one that actually made it through the abyss that is my gigantic backlog was Hoshizora, though. Gotta be my favorite showcase of running-gag humor I've seen. Some routes are better then others though. Decent storytelling though and one or two memorable characters, so it gets a pass.

MVA, despite it's ungodly pacing problems. The political intrigue, three games of character building all climaxing and even the psuedo-science was all amazing. Some of the best production value I've ever seen. Go as far as to say some of the best japanese media ever.

I don't think an opinion would hurt anyones feelings. Just know that your opinion is subject to being as wrong as everyone elses. Of course, simply talking on a forum won't change anything. I'm not even wishing for all H to be abolished in all story driven VN's, either. I just wish it was more then just fan-service. It's not impossible to make sex relevant or meaningful in a story. I just encourage people I know/talk with to get hard-copies of the really great VN's that deserve the money for the experience. If they can afford them, obviously. That's a different matter. What? What could possibly make you think the VN industry is going anywhere? If anything sales have been going up with the popularity slowly melting into the west. The only thing is that it's hard for new companies and VN's that aren't set in a highschool/have a deeper meaning to them to set a foothold in the industry. Key, TYPE-MOON and Nitroplus are all still doing well. There is literally no evidence to support any VN death any time soon.

As I said, I don't blame the buisnesses for actually selling it. I can't. It's easy money and we apparently are eager to foam at the mouth in order to see pictures moan at us. However, it's the community that decides what content we get, not the companies. Whatever sells, we get more of. And thats Nukige. No, all-ages can't possibly sell more. There aren't enough people who care or pay attention to quality of writing or flow of a visual novel to warrant taking out an H-Scene despite how bad or abtrusive it is. It will almost always sell more if it has H in it. The only thing I can think of is something from Key, who even among the japanese audience has a reputation for being awful at it. Again, it's not always bad. Sometimes it's just there and forgettable and is supposed to act like a treat for getting to it. Koihime Musou/Shuffle supposedly sold very well. You can't dispute that if the japanese actually saw a market in the western audience they'd be more lenient towards making a deal. Also, C&D notices are mostly by incredibly over-energetic law teams on the company. Very, very rarely do you ever get a C&D by the president himself to ask you to stop making translations. They wouldn't have made it over to the west any other way, so if even a few people are willing to pay the export fee, it's mostly just free publicity. Wasting money on hard-copies and advertising on a market that doesn't seem to have any want nor care for real power-house visual novels would be a terrible buisness decision. There's no market. That is the only reason. Money is what decides it. It doesn't matter if a couple people are xenophobic on the team. Profit is profit. Thing is, this isn't limited to us. You're right. Companies can only barely survive making all-ages games. And that's because the thing that I talked about before, community drooling at the mouth for H scenes regardless of quality, exists in japan too. Even despite how good a game might be, people may not buy it simply because of the lack of H. That's why I find H in story-driven games a lot of the time completely cancerous. They offer nothing but fan-service, potentially ruin the flow, and enforce the fact that we need the stupid material in VN's because we are incapable of accepting it as an actual media form. I'm not saying I want all story-H abolished. That'd be bad. And an even-now niche community would grow even smaller. No, I just wish it just not put in there for the sake of putting in there. Like relevancy. Written to fit inside the story without seeming awkward. It's not impossible. Hell, a lot of story-driven VN's H-Scenes are tolerable, yes. It just bothers me when things like Little Busters! don't get looked into/bought because "Everything else has H, why doesn't this?" Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo's H was okay. It was a reward for going through all the crap. Saya no Uta's H was a plot-point. Then there's Da Capo II and Yume Miru Kusuri, who have a little bit of being pointless but tolerable. Then you have MuvLuv Alternatives H which was pointless and terrible. G-Senjou's which was entirely flow killing, F/SN's which was forced & Hoshizoras which a lot of the time was random. I might be being too picky about quality. I mean, I did enjoy all of the ones I listed, really. The H didn't ruin the games. Yet, it's annoying to be reminded that companies have to shoehorn this crap in because it won't sell otherwise.

Yo. Author of that here. You're right in the sense that I didn't really talk about how H-Scenes in story-VN's really work, as it wasn't part of the article, really. I did briefly touch up-on how I feel about Nukige's themselves, but never really decided to say if they really interfered with the flow of the story or not. I probably should have explained if it relates or not. Sorry about that. Anyways. The very notion that VN's need H is incredibly absurd. Very rarely do you find H in visual novels that partains to anything besides fan-service. G-Senjou no Maou's attrocious butchering of Haru's confession in the main route is one of the first that comes to mind as far as misplaced H goes. I find it insane to think that you need it to be there for someone to read a visual novel. Although, this goes back to the "Nukige Effect" I talked about in that article. See, it's almost common knowledge among people who only sort-of know about Visual Novels that these are just weird games for sex. Of course, it's easy to correct, citing Clannad, Little Busters, Ever17 and so on and so forth, but it's becoming a sad truth that our community almost makes it a demand. We don't have many Visual Novels without it. There isn't a demand for it. Why make it when theres a chance that you may sell more copies by putting in fan-service in the game? I say because 80% of the time it's terrible. And it honest to god ruins the quality of the story being told when it's so badly written, which it almost always is. Sure, some stories need it. Do all of them? No. So why do so many of them actually have it? Because there's a demand for it. Regardless of quality diminishing because of it or if it interferes with the flow of the story, it will almost always sell more with sex in it. This is why I think the whole Nukige thing I talked about is relevent, personally. Because the weirder shit, the pointless sex, the lackluster writing sells more then the story-driven stuff. Even the damn companies think we are weirdos who actually pay for weird still-framed voice-acted cartoon sex. Not trying to be mean to anyones opinions or anyones thoughts on the matter, but really, I do find sex in story-driven games to relate to what I said. I find it near cancerous.