Maybe it will happen in the final version - You never know. If enough Steam users complain to the dev, it might possibly happen (What dev with a head for business wouldn't? The dev could start with the easiest and least expensive option, if he can't do the translation himself or herself, which is to translate the interface. If that gets enough sales in the beginning then maybe he or she could add translated subtitles later on as an update (More complex and expensive depending upon how much text needs to be translated).
But I dunno why this is common in Chinese games, but most Chinese developers tend to rely on machine translation for their game. The result is often choppy English that sometimes awkward to read. I mean I'm sure there are many Chinese devs that speaks English so why not use them?
Machine translation (Cheapest form - Free if you get it from Google Translate) is 1:1, word for word translation, unlike a "natural speaker" translation which is made by a fan or an official (Paid professional linguist) translation. In different languages there may be idioms that are a part of one language that may not translate well "word for word" into another language because the other language may simply not have those idioms (And vice versa).
For example, in US English, there is the idiom "I need to do the laundry." but people who speak other languages that do not have that idiom would be confused when it is translated "word for word" by machine translation into their language. They may ask "How does one "do" the laundry? A proper "natural speaker" translation from US English to another language for that idiom would be "I need to wash the laundry." That was just a very simple example. When there are long sentences with many more words involving many more idioms, well, I hope that you can get the idea of what scale of confusion that could happen.
There are many chances for "something to get lost" in the translation if it was done by machine (1:1, word for word) translation rather than by "natural speaker" translation. This is especially true both ways for Asian languages like Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian (From India), ... etc., European languages that are not entirely or partly based on Latin like Turkish (Also, the people there consider themselves either European or Arab depending upon whom you ask) and yet other languages like Arabic, Slavic, Cyrillic (Russian), ... etc.
There are many idioms in Japanese and Chinese that do not translate well "word for word" or at all into English (Resulting in "Choppy" English), thus it would require a highly skilled linguist (expensive) to perform the proper translation for VNs into US English (I'm not even talking about British English - In the US, they say "bathroom" but in the UK and parts of Canada (British, not French parts) they say "loo". Did that "Blow away your mind"? (Translation from US English - "Did that amaze you?")
Why they put it on STEAM then if they won't or can't even hire someone to put it into English? I mean, take Indonesia for example; their developer make a solid game and put an effort to make it available in English language. This is not the first Chinese game I found that doesn't have the English Language option. Even worse; this is not the first Chinese game I have huge interest first only to throw it into the corner because of languagee barrier. I do can speak other langue besides my mother langue (Chinese included), but that's not the reason for them to opt out English language.
If some Chinese people or Chinese developer read this, please, use common sense if you do have one; why make something and put it into International market/platform without including something that most of us Internationally use to speak each others? Not all of us can speak your language.
Sorry for my late reply, LunaKid. Sometimes I get so many replies that I may miss one or two along the way to trying to answer all of them. Steam serves an international market and not all devs actually intend for their products to be consumed by all regions and instead by only a select few (I agree that it's their loss for not including English as much of the World uses it in order to facilitate commerce). Basically, Steam will allow almost any kind of content to be posted on their marketplace regardless of its language, as long as Steam gets a percentage of its sales (And they most certainly do)! Maybe for those devs, it's like Jessie J sang in her hit song "Price Tag" - "It's not about the money". Either that or they just don't know English proficiently enough to perform the English translation themselves or can't afford to hire an expensive, professional linguist which would result in an increase of the price of the final product, possibly losing some loyal users due to the unavoidable higher price.
English Language not supported. Perhaps sometime in the future with the final version.
Chinese only Interface and Subtitles.
But I dunno why this is common in Chinese games, but most Chinese developers tend to rely on machine translation for their game. The result is often choppy English that sometimes awkward to read. I mean I'm sure there are many Chinese devs that speaks English so why not use them?
For example, in US English, there is the idiom "I need to do the laundry." but people who speak other languages that do not have that idiom would be confused when it is translated "word for word" by machine translation into their language. They may ask "How does one "do" the laundry? A proper "natural speaker" translation from US English to another language for that idiom would be "I need to wash the laundry." That was just a very simple example. When there are long sentences with many more words involving many more idioms, well, I hope that you can get the idea of what scale of confusion that could happen.
There are many chances for "something to get lost" in the translation if it was done by machine (1:1, word for word) translation rather than by "natural speaker" translation. This is especially true both ways for Asian languages like Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian (From India), ... etc., European languages that are not entirely or partly based on Latin like Turkish (Also, the people there consider themselves either European or Arab depending upon whom you ask) and yet other languages like Arabic, Slavic, Cyrillic (Russian), ... etc.
There are many idioms in Japanese and Chinese that do not translate well "word for word" or at all into English (Resulting in "Choppy" English), thus it would require a highly skilled linguist (expensive) to perform the proper translation for VNs into US English (I'm not even talking about British English - In the US, they say "bathroom" but in the UK and parts of Canada (British, not French parts) they say "loo". Did that "Blow away your mind"? (Translation from US English - "Did that amaze you?")
If some Chinese people or Chinese developer read this, please, use common sense if you do have one; why make something and put it into International market/platform without including something that most of us Internationally use to speak each others? Not all of us can speak your language.