Decay

I think JAST ditched the DRM they used to use a while ago so there shouldn't be any activation limits or anything like that. As for why they don't just put it on Steam, very good question. Steins;Gate is the kind of VN that could do somewhat well on Steam. The anime was popular in the west and it's pretty light on the romance elements, focusing instead on telling its time travel story. One can only assume that JAST is being unnecessarily stubborn and doesn't want to release the digital version outside of their own services for a while.

You can safely skip Sakaki's route for example and miss absolutely nothing of importance. Grisaia's routes are so independent of eachother that it's not necessarily vitally important to read every one, only the ones with important backstory to them. You can get a fulfilling and satisfying experience in many VNs even if you skip routes. And not all routes are of the same quality. If reading something becomes a chore, then by all means stop because otherwise, what's the point? We don't read VNs out of obligation.

I feel like it's always best to respect the creators' vision. Maybe as a side bonus through the extra menu if that would be at all possible but tampering with the game too much would be going too far. They didn't include that in the final version for a reason, so it's best to respect that.

It's a very popular game within Japan and there's a lot of demand for it outside of Japan, so you can be assured that someone, at some point, will attempt to translate it again. There currently aren't any groups who have announced plans to do so yet, though. Well, Harvest Fiesta is definitely coming next, but after that, who knows. Those other two projects are Liar-Soft steampunk games, and MangaGamer are probably going to announce their intent to translate those soon, which would make Amaterasu choose other projects.

The translator who was working on Baldr Sky is different from the main Amaterasu translator, Ixreec. IIRC, the guy who was TLing Baldr Sky had some RL stuff come up and hasn't been around the scene since. You can consider that project permamently dead.

Please don't go around bugging other TL groups about this. They'll translate based on their own priorities. No one takes requests.

My speculation: Koestl will translate one or more of Liar-Soft's steampunk games, perhaps starting with Sekien no Ingarock. MangaGamer has strongly hinted at them getting a license to translate L-S's steampunk series, and just last week they tweeted that they have a new translator who just recieved materials from one of their "new partners". Also Koestle has recently tweeted about rereading Ingarock in japanese and badmouthed Amaterasu's translation. Also, the language Koestle used in his tweets announcing his new gig and the Meikyuu delay implied that he might be working on a game that's already fan translated (he went out of his way to call this an official release). The upside to this being an already translated game is that it's also rather short and he's a very fast translator. So he might be done with it before you know it. They might also go whole hog and have him translate the entire "what a beautiful" franchise, including the games not already translated. Or maybe I'm reading too much into this.

It's a different game. That's why Meikyuu is being delayed.

koestle hasn't mentioned anything about it being JAST. But yes, he was hired to do an official localization by *someone* for "a really cool visual novel from a really cool company".

I can understand some of the frustration. He DID say that he would make the untranslated scripts available to the public if he didn't find anyone in particular he felt comfortable handing the project to, after all. It's always frustrating when someone goes back on their word. Still, I appreciate the effort he put into it and I hope he changes his mind at some point.

It's a problem with the pre-patched torrent some people are having. If you download the Japanese iso linked to on the first page of this thread and apply the patch yourself, it should be fine. It's a super easy process, really.