VNs slowly gaining Western popularity?

[Mirage]

Now is this really the fault of the story being not well written enough? Or is it really the wrong expectation people have with VN labeled as games?

We should keep both in mind, just as we should keep in mind who it is that is giving the opinion. My point is that we shouldn't assume that it is the fault of the audience 'not getting it' when there could be other very valid problems and things we can do to solve them.

We also need to stop thinking about things only in current terms. Chasing after the coat tails of mainstream games isn't going to get us anywhere. What we should be doing is looking at the bigger picture, looking at ALL potential audiences and finding out where our markets are. Not everyone is going to be into VNs, but I refuse to beleive that they don't have potential to expand into a wider market if certain things are addressed.

Also remember that Zynga is currently kicking most other mainstream studio's arses. The people who are playing Zynga's games don't even consider themselves gamers! They are just people looking for entertainment. There is no reason why we should be defining ourselves by the way things currently are. It won't be too long and almost everyone will be looking for games to play and they will be looking for all types. Puzzles, Sims, RPGs, MMOs, FPSs, RTSs and everything inbeween and outside the box. To say our medium has no value to the rest of the world because it has words and that people don't like reading is quite possibly missing the forest for the trees.

*I'm talking about the expansion of the market as a whole, not necessarily what has to be done just this minute. Just advising people keep their minds open and don't take things at face value.

I get what you are trying to say. I myself feel that story wise, EVN still has a lot of rooms for improvement.

But anyway, I think you are missing my point. I have never blamed it to the audience. I blame it to the wrong labeling/expectation of what people have with VN. It may sound silly but many people in the world buy things according to genre (aka labeling/expectation). Some people will never touched things that are labelled as things they don't enjoy. Like anime/manga is actually a very good example. Try selling them in Comic Con, and be prepared to get a lot of people hissing at you just because you draw anime. I was once the naive girl who thought that as long as it's good, I can change people mind.

Likewise, VN has too many stigma attached to it that makes it harder to get accepted. My point is that there are too many factors in this than just saying the story is not good enough. Anything can be popular, even a crappy story like Twilight can be popular given the right publicity. You're telling people not to take things at face value, but that's essentially what everyone is doing. Unless there's someone out there that can suddenly change the misconception that comes with VN, it will be a very long time before it will get accepted.

The reason why some people here mentioned about mainstream games such as Heavy Rain, it's precisely because we want to analyze what makes them popular. Right now, any other theories of what can be popular outside of those that had already succeeded can only remain hypothesis until someone proves us otherwise.

Btw, casual gamers are a completely different beast altogether. I know many people who play Angry Birds, the Sim, and never considered themselves gamers. And I know that my parents would probably play Hidden Object Games, but hard core gamers would never understand the appeal of pixel hunting.

[Auro-Cyanide]

That is kind of blaming the audience for not understanding the labels though (not directly of course, but it's something we can do something about). If that was the case it would be our job to either inform or change the labelling. I don't think this is a very big problem though. We only know about the issues because we are close to it. If you went and asked your Mum/Dad/Cousin/Classmate/random on the street what a Visual Novel was, would they know what you were talking about? We pretty much have a blamk slate where that is concerned.

Why are casual gamers different? They are exactly the type of audience I think we should be looking at. Going after hard core gamers is pointless. They have their games and they will stubbornly stick by them. However there is a great need for story driven games and the gamer market is only expanding. Don't worry about the FPS player who thinks they don't like to 'read'. Instead look towards the business man on the train, the mum picking up her kids and the uni student having a break inbetween classes who are just looking to be entertained. There are billions of people on this planet, there is room for all types of games because people have different tastes.

Of course, I think things would need to change on a number of levels, including a possible rebrand. But is it possible? Hell yeah.

[Desu_Cake]

Why are casual gamers different? They are exactly the type of audience I think we should be looking at. Going after hard core gamers is pointless. They have their games and they will stubbornly stick by them. However there is a great need for story driven games and the gamer market is only expanding. Don't worry about the FPS player who thinks they don't like to 'read'. Instead look towards the business man on the train, the mum picking up her kids and the uni student having a break inbetween classes who are just looking to be entertained. There are billions of people on this planet, there is room for all types of games because people have different tastes.

Of course, I think things would need to change on a number of levels, inclusing a possible rebrand. But is it possible? Hell yeah.

I was going to write my own opinion here, but you just said pretty much everything I was going to say.
Everyone seems to look down on casual gamers *sigh*

[applegirl]

I think people here ignore the strong bias against anime/manga art, but it really exists (for a lot of gamers, casual and hardcore). That alone is enough to make a casual gamer/hardcore gamer pass on many occasions (I've seen this in real life and in forums so many times that I won't bother recommending visual novels to anyone I know, I already know they'll pass on the art style alone). You can see this bias here on the forums where a lot of 3D art games or traditional art games get far fewer responses/downloads. It plays a huge role in going mainstream, as well as many of the typical stories that the visual novels have.

Also: I'm not sure why people think KS would make VNs mainstream. If I think back a similar example of a VN with great press (Digital), it didn't end up bringing people/media to the OLEVN scene. Instead, it brought the game creator (C. Love) to the attention of the mainstream. All of her works get heavily covered and that's what is key to becoming mainstream, right? If we think of Harry Potter, it didn't bring people to reading fiction. It brought people to the work of J.K Rowling. I didn't read Digital or KS thinking about OLEVNs. I read them and thought about the studios that made them. So it can't be a single work that makes the medium mainstream, it has to be a collective and high quality group of VNs that become popular, a standard of quality that cannot be denied. Because even if you consider all the audience available, in a way you are competing for their attention from all forms of entertainment. My friends are still in college and follow the casual gamer/hardcore gamer lifestyle. My parents fit the older generation casual gamers as well. They have all forms of entertainment: television/triple A games/movies, etc that are competing for their attention and money. Visual novels have to grab their attention over that and if you think of Zynga, facebook was the easy service to that.

Visual novels aren't advertised and if I didn't actively look for it, I probably have no idea they exist. If you put them on a big time app store to reach more people, prices would have to reflect that (and could high quality visual novels be made if they're sold at a dollar a piece app price?). There are a lot of barriers to this, let alone getting complex and rich stories that are written so well that the audience disregards the lack of budget. If I think back to all the indie games I actually read about in the media, they had ridiculously addicting and simple game play that appealed to the casual gamer (Plants vs Zombies, Angry Birds, etc) and cost very little to try out. Can visual novels really fit that mode? I have doubts, but hey, I like it if it did occur.

[Mirage]

Why are casual gamers different? They are exactly the type of audience I think we should be looking at. Going after hard core gamers is pointless. They have their games and they will stubbornly stick by them. However there is a great need for story driven games and the gamer market is only expanding. Don't worry about the FPS player who thinks they don't like to 'read'. Instead look towards the business man on the train, the mum picking up her kids and the uni student having a break inbetween classes who are just looking to be entertained. There are billions of people on this planet, there is room for all types of games because people have different tastes.

I used to be like you. When I started to make commercial games, I plan to aim for casual gamers too, only to realize I am too naive yet again. One thing that make casual gamers casual is that it's a game that doesn't have much investment in time. The reason why many casual gamers don't consider themselves as hard core is precisely because of this. They don't play games all day. They pick up a game they like and drop them any time they feel like it. Think of Bejeweled, Tetris, Angry Birds, they all share similarities as in, it's easy to pick up and drop any time you like. VN on the other hand requires a lot of investment in time. If I am interested in the story, I would be reading non stop until I'm done, but I'm less likely to replay again. At least not as many times as I replay casual games. In many ways, I actually think of VN is a bit more closer to JRPG. It's only good for one time playing for most people.

P.S I'm not looking down at casual game market. It's the opposite. It's actually the market I'm looking forward the most since it is dominated by female. Makes total sense of why otome games is dominating now in EVN world. But for VN to be accepted without any form of gameplay (raising stats, etc), that would still be a challenge.

[Gavrilo]

Why are casual gamers different? They are exactly the type of audience I think we should be looking at. Going after hard core gamers is pointless. They have their games and they will stubbornly stick by them. However there is a great need for story driven games and the gamer market is only expanding. Don't worry about the FPS player who thinks they don't like to 'read'. Instead look towards the business man on the train, the mum picking up her kids and the uni student having a break inbetween classes who are just looking to be entertained. There are billions of people on this planet, there is room for all types of games because people have different tastes.

I used to be like you. When I started to make commercial games, I plan to aim for casual gamers too, only to realize I am too naive yet again. One thing that make casual gamers casual is that it's a game that doesn't have much investment in time. The reason why many casual gamers don't consider themselves as hard core is precisely because of this. They don't play games all day. They pick up a game they like and drop them any time they feel like it. Think of Bejeweled, Tetris, Angry Birds, they all share similarities as in, it's easy to pick up and drop any time you like. VN on the other hand requires a lot of investment in time. If I am interested in the story, I would be reading non stop until I'm done, but I'm less likely to replay again. At least not as many times as I replay casual games. In many ways, I actually think of VN is a bit more closer to JRPG. It's only good for one time playing for most people.

P.S I'm not looking down at casual game market. It's the opposite. It's actually the market I'm looking forward the most since it is dominated by female. Makes total sense of why otome games is dominating now in EVN world. But for VN to be accepted without any form of gameplay (raising stats, etc), that would still be a challenge.

I partially agree with you there. VNs may or may not appeal to certain audiences, it all depends on the content and objectives. If you wish to immerse the reader by throwing him straight into the battlefield, then why not aim for hardcore gamers? Melty Blood is a VN with pretty good fighting mechanics, and there are lots of strategical battles ones (Daibanchou -Big Bang Age-, Sengoku Rance, Koihime Musou...). Similarly, some VNs involve a high degree of backtracking and replaying, which casual gamers are not very willing to do.

Something which comes to mind is 999: it has relatively complex branching, with choices not very intuitive, and you must play at least twice to get the full story. Not to mention how easy it is to get stuck with the "escape the room" gameplay. Casual gamers probably wouldn't like it.

Also: I'm not sure why people think KS would make VNs mainstream. If I think back a similar example of a VN with great press (Digital), it didn't end up bringing people/media to the OLEVN scene. Instead, it brought the game creator (C. Love) to the attention of the mainstream. All of her works get heavily covered and that's what is key to becoming mainstream, right? If we think of Harry Potter, it didn't bring people to reading fiction. It brought people to the work of J.K Rowling. I didn't read Digital or KS thinking about OLEVNs. I read them and thought about the studios that made them. So it can't be a single work that makes the medium mainstream, it has to be a collective and high quality group of VNs that become popular, a standard of quality that cannot be denied.

On what basis can you safely say that Harry Potter didn't bring people to reading fiction? It's very natural to explore more about something you liked (genre, medium, author...), so you can maybe have the same experience again. The most mainstream VNs have these effects, just not the way we might expect: someone who enjoyed Phoenix Wright is more likely to play point-and-click games or look for detective stories; for 999, it's escape the room games. That's why Katawa Shoujo, a more traditional VN, has a greater potential of attracting attention.

[papillon]

Something which comes to mind is 999: it has relatively complex branching, with choices not very intuitive, and you must play at least twice to get the full story. Not to mention how easy it is to get stuck with the "escape the room" gameplay. Casual gamers probably wouldn't like it.

This depends entirely on one's definition of casual, though. Sometimes people say casual meaning 'people who want an easy game with very limited commitment' and sometimes people say casual meaning 'women who play downloadable games like from BigFish'.

Point-and-click mystery/adventures statistically have a much higher female-percentage fanbase than many of the genres often described as 'hardcore'. Older, as well, because these games tend not to require fast reflexes which not every has anymore.... and the 'traditional' hardcore crowd turn up their noses at playing in a "dead" genre like adventures.

Casual adventure games (more minigames, more animations, more hints, and shorter playtimes) are one of the big downloadable casual genres. Very popular.

[applegirl]

On what basis can you safely say that Harry Potter didn't bring people to reading fiction? It's very natural to explore more about something you liked (genre, medium, author...), so you can maybe have the same experience again. The most mainstream VNs have these effects, just not the way we might expect: someone who enjoyed Phoenix Wright is more likely to play point-and-click games or look for detective stories; for 999, it's escape the room games. That's why Katawa Shoujo, a more traditional VN, has a greater potential of attracting attention.

Well, here's an article by the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/books ... wanted=all (title is:Potter Has Limited Effect on Reading Habits).

We could debate the limited part, but the majority didn't change. Also, personal experience and observing people around me who picked up Harry Potter due to rave reviews and hype. They eagerly consumed the books/movies/games and finished with it when the series ended, going back to their normal daily life. I agree that if the author wrote again, people would take notice. Look at any book J.K. Rowling has worked on, always hugely covered by the media and public. But the other choices (genre and medium) would only occur at a significantly less percentage, if at all. Not a single person I know picked up a fantasy book after Harry Potter, not a single person I know thought of reading books more often. It was a phenomenon to all of them, a very unusual entity that made them all take notice out of their daily life. Not to mention, I suspect people will read Katawa Shoujo and not really think OLEVN. The comparison I've read in reviews was more of jp VNs (and it even is on a recommendation list filled with only jp VNs). Any thread I go to where the person asks for more VNs like KS? No one ever answers with an OLEVN because there really isn't a OLEVN like it.

[Gavrilo]

On what basis can you safely say that Harry Potter didn't bring people to reading fiction? It's very natural to explore more about something you liked (genre, medium, author...), so you can maybe have the same experience again. The most mainstream VNs have these effects, just not the way we might expect: someone who enjoyed Phoenix Wright is more likely to play point-and-click games or look for detective stories; for 999, it's escape the room games. That's why Katawa Shoujo, a more traditional VN, has a greater potential of attracting attention.

Well, here's an article by the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/books ... wanted=all (title is:Potter Has Limited Effect on Reading Habits).

We could debate the limited part, but the majority didn't change. Also, personal experience and observing people around me who picked up Harry Potter due to rave reviews and hype. They eagerly consumed the books/movies/games and finished with it when the series ended, going back to their normal daily life. I agree that if the author wrote again, people would take notice. Look at any book J.K. Rowling has worked on, always hugely covered by the media and public. But the other choices (genre and medium) would only occur at a significantly less percentage, if at all. Not a single person I know picked up a fantasy book after Harry Potter, not a single person I know thought of reading books more often. It was a phenomenon to all of them, a very unusual entity that made them all take notice out of their daily life. Not to mention, I suspect people will read Katawa Shoujo and not really think OLEVN. The comparison I've read in reviews was more of jp VNs (and it even is on a recommendation list filled with only jp VNs). Any thread I go to where the person asks for more VNs like KS? No one ever answers with an OLEVN because there really isn't a OLEVN like it.

Very interesting article. However, it doesn't dismiss the fact that many people have a "special relationship" with some books they've read, turning points in their lives. While not a literary example, I myself approached game making through a very beautiful RPG made in RPG Maker ("The Island", but I was never able to find it again). The thought that anyone could make something that good with an accessible tool seemed fascinating. First came other RPG Maker games, then RPG Maker itself... and then I'm here. Maybe there won't be a revolution or something like that, but as long as some titles are able to throw few seeds into the ground, they will definitely grow.

[applegirl]

I agree that some lives are affected, but I'm really thinking about the majority and for the long term. I used to love reading light novels and there are a few that I'll look at with fondness, but my lifestyle and habits have changed. I think a lot of people feel that way (as illustrated by the people who drop reading as they grow older in the article). We have so many forms of entertainment competing for our attention, and they are a lot better at advertising/ease of service. I do think the potential for growth is there, but personally I imagine a "feast or famine" scenario. The very best and professional VN makers will be able to get the attention and media coverage while the others get no recognition at all (think of the indie game market where the most well known indies succeed on Steam).

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I agree that some lives are affected, but I'm really thinking about the majority and for the long term. I used to love reading light novels and there are a few that I'll look at with fondness, but my lifestyle and habits have changed. I think a lot of people feel that way (as illustrated by the people who drop reading as they grow older in the article). We have so many forms of entertainment competing for our attention, and they are a lot better at advertising/ease of service.

This is what happened with me. I used to read 4-5 novels a week growing up. As my teen years advanced I read one novel every 1-2 weeks. When I entered the military I had little time for books, then college had me reading different books, but none for fun. Now, as a firmly entrenched adult, between my job, social obligations, and other forms of entertainment like Netflix, or the Internet, I do good to read 3 novels a year. Most of those are non-fiction. I really have to hear good things or have a strong interest to pick up a fiction novel these days.

I don't feel like I do less reading, however. With the Internet I read quite a bit everyday. Articles, blogs, forums, the news, etc. It's just not the same QUALITY of reading I used to do. When I find a particular novel that I can't put down, that forces me to stay up all night reading it, some of the old magic comes back. I think, "Wow. I used to do this all the time, and now I remember why." But like the article mentioned, those types of books come along too sparsely to reform the habit for me.

Visual Novels have so many constituent parts - art, writing, gameplay - I feel they have to do everything right to stand a chance of grabbing a slice of people's limited entertainment hours. Certainly mine.