MangaGamer has released an English localization of Princess Evangile, a moe-centric VN by Moonstone. Apart from the adult version, there is also an all-ages version on Steam.
In Evangile we follow Okonogi Masaya, a down-on-his-luck “thoroughly pleasant young man”. His parents got divorced when he was still a kid, and he sees his mom only rarely… and now his deadbeat dad’s run out on him, leaving poor protag-kun in some serious debt.
Thankfully he gets saved by this girl who wants him to be the first male student at the posh all-girls’ school Vincennes Academy. Problem is, she’s the only one there who really wants any boys around, with the rest either neutral or in (sometimes disgusted) opposition.
I guess getting the thoroughly sheltered girls on his side is where the “thoroughly pleasant young man” thing comes into play.
You can read more about Princess Evangile its MG store page(NSFW), where you can buy it for $44.95 ameribucks. The all-ages version is available on Steam, and is currently discounted by 10% at $31.49 . As usual, you’ll get a key for the Steam version as well if you buy the adult version.
A sidenote: due to ESRB regulations regarding presenting content with non-adult ESRB ratings next to adult content, MG has been forced to stop selling a decent lot of all-ages versions of their VNs on their own site. This includes Evangile, Eden*, Dengeki Stryker and more. Based on these troubles, they’ll just not get ESRB ratings for any further releases.
I can somewhat understand where ESRB issue with this is coming from since it can be compared to putting the adult rated dvd’s with alongside the other non-adult rated dvds in a rental shop. Problem is, the non-adult dvds were already in the ‘only adult” section so this logic of theirs isn’t holding very well (here I am referring to the fact that you need to confirm that you are 18 or older before entering mangagamer website/shop).
Nevertheless one can see where they are coming for, doesn’t change the fact that they are wrong, but it explains why they would do it (+ some regulations and rules I am not aware nor care to research)
Part of the background for this all is that MG used to have an all-ages section. They removed it for pretty good reasons (people had trouble finding the adult section – pretty understandable given the site design, actually – and adult material kept creeping into the all-ages section anyway because coding is hard.) This is probably a side effect of that, but apparently sales picked up after they removed the allages section anyway so yeah.
Still sad that people won’t be able to buy all-ages directly from them to avoid Steam taking its cut, but oh well might not have been a lot of people anyway.
you can still buy all-ages version directly from Mangagamer…you just have to buy the Adult version and you will get the all-Ages one for free…
The problem as I see it is that web shops have some fundamental differences between ordinary shops. Web shops do not have sections in the same manner, as they are dynamic and often tailored to the individual customer based on this viewing and purchasing history. (See Steam for a good example, as it straight up tells you why it shows what.)
For example, if you had a action-fantasy title, in a normal shop it would be placed under either action or fantasy depending on which is more prominent in that title. However in a web shop it would appear in both.
Enforcing this would lead to strange cases, such as for example Umineko can’t be shown in the “you might be interested in” box when viewing Kara no Shoujo even though they are both Mystery VNs, simply because one of them contains adult content while the other does not.
Edit: Actually, after reading their statement, scrap that last example. It is still stupid as you need to be 18+ to view the site as you mentioned.
However it does have one positive affect, it removes the potential issue that a non-adult game can only be bought on adult sites. It is not an issue here as they are on steam as well, and the rules are probably not well thought out, but it sounds like mangagamer could easily design their website to not be against the rules, but simply don’t want to use money on developing their website.
I finished the game. Now to wait for the English release of the fan disc…..