I'm of the opinion that a fan translation is acceptable, so long as it requires the end user to have purchased the original product.
In some visual novels, patches are distributed via delta patches that are designed to be used on the binaries provided by the original installation. Or in some other cases, the group only provides certain modified archives which are installed by overwriting the original installation.
In both cases, the end user who doesn't understand Japanese (or in some other VNs, Chinese) are able to play while the publisher/developer still gets compensated for their work.
In some visual novels, patches are distributed via delta patches that are designed to be used on the binaries provided by the original installation. Or in some other cases, the group only provides certain modified archives which are installed by overwriting the original installation.
In both cases, the end user who doesn't understand Japanese (or in some other VNs, Chinese) are able to play while the publisher/developer still gets compensated for their work.