YukinoMiko

I'm not sure they do add it to compensate (all the time). It feels more like they decide they're going for the market which will jump for anything sexy, and then cut corners elsewhere because they know they've already reeled in the demographic they want. I'd say it's part of the more general problem of producing things specifically to be marketable/sell, rather than trying to create the best product possible and then thinking about how to sell it after.

I'm actually one of those who looks down on heavily sexualised anime (especially because the quality of everything else but the sexy bit generally suffers), but I don't have any issue with most eroge, let alone non-H VNs. I can only speak for me on that, though. It's just... sort of like the difference between a softcore porn movie (most sexy anime) vs. a proper film which happens to have a couple sex scenes (quite a few eroge).

I don't personally think it's about the market getting big in itself, since the appeal of the medium is small enough that it's clearly never going to hold a candle to the major sellers on either Steam or GOG. However, GOG have already had some success as an outlet for Japanese games (Tokyo Xanadu was a chart-topper there despite being a fairy mediocre title), and visual novels have an overlapping market with such Japanese titles. If I had to guess, then, part of the point is to be visibly welcoming to a certain demographic, while also indirectly snubbing Steam. It's poor "optics" with respect to some of the population, but if GOG are betting on the idea that those people (approving of censorship, and so forth) are more likely to be Steam-loyal than to share their no-DRM ideology, then it would be quite a strong way of boosting their presence as a freer and more consumer-friendly alternative, in the business of giving all customers their desired product without putting unnecessary obstacles in their way. So, they get to increase their appeal to the Japanese-content-loving demographic, and also increase their appeal to the libertarian demographic (more or less their core), at the same time. Win-win for them, really.

す、すみません！

I was in a chatroom (actually completely VN/anime/whatever-unrelated) with a couple of really weeby people who were talking about Ever17. I decided to look into it. It was good shit, do recommend. It also probably helped that I started watching subbed anime when I was 12, because I met someone literally living in Japan online who wouldn't stop recommending shows to me. I had already been watching the dubbed stuff on network TV since I was pretty small, so it wasn't too big a leap--and from there, VNs weren't too big a leap, either.

I'm, like, into visual novels and stuff. Enough so that I decided to learn the language! I will hang out like an awkward nerd and maybe help translate stuff if anyone needs a hand. Nice t' meet ya, or something. (I really have no idea what to put here. ;_;)