bakauchuujin

Yes, I work for JAST.

Did you remove outliers? For instance something like nekopara could likely have a huge impact on the average on its own, I think the interesting question is how a VN with average sales sell through the different years rather than also including the ones that sold way more or less than average.

I’ve recently read a few thoughtful discussion threads on the state of the VN market here in the West. Some taking a negative stance, some with a more positive outlook. I thought I’d try to put some numbers on these statements and look at VN ownership on Steam, still the predominant market for PC games, and use that to analyse whether VNs are on their true route or have stumbled into a bad end.

Data collection
I checked just over a million steam profiles to try and get a random sample of gamers. With Steam’s new private-by-default profile settings, only 8% of those users had public game lists, but that still gave us 80k user profiles to work with. I could then compare my sample with the “leaked” owner data and scale up my numbers accordingly to represent Steam as a whole.
Steam is rather haphazard with what gets tagged as a Visual Novel (RPGMaker games like A Bird Story are tagged as VNs), so I’ll only be including games that also have a VNDB entry.

Steam VN releases
So let’s start simple, with a simple plot of how many VNs are being released each month.

 
At first glance things seem rosy for VN fans, there have never been more VNs being released in the West. But let’s break down those results a bit:

Note that these trends are cumulative but NOT stacked. The EVN, JVN, and other VNs trends include only non-free VNs.
Here we can start to see the reason for the differing perspectives on the state of the VN market depending upon whether you read more JVNs or EVNs. While the rate of EVNs releases has steadily increased, the number of new JVNs has remained fairly static since 2016, despite Steam’s lowered release requirements. Steady release rates aren’t definitely bad news, but in general profitable industries want to expand, so the lack of expansion tells you something about the industry. But as someone with a plan-to-read list that grows longer by the day, I’m not complaining if the rate doesn’t increase.
One under-reported development in the VN market is the recent rapid growth of Chinese VNs (listed as other here), who have quietly been doing well in their home markets, but are rarely translated.
So while more VNs might be good for us fans, how does the market look for developers? Let’s have a look at VN sales.

Note that these trends are cumulative but NOT stacked. All sales are back-dated to the release date of the VN on Steam. Free VNs count sales as the number of users who have logged some playtime in it.
Unfortunately Steam’s API doesn’t list when someone bought a game, so we’ve got to group sales by the release date of the VN. That means there will be a bias towards older releases which have been out longer and so had more time to build up sales.
Here we can see some justification for the doom and gloom perspectives, with more recent VN releases selling significantly less than older ones. With new JVNs in 2017 selling only half what they did in 2016. The EVN downward trend is especially stark given that the number of new releases has been increasing, so that’s less revenue split among even more VNs.
Not all VNs are equal, some are priced higher, so let’s look at total revenue rather than total sales.

Note that this assumes every user pays full price, so this is more the maximum possible revenue than actual revenue.
Here we can see the difference between EVN and JVN markets. While JVNs sell only half as many as EVNs, they earn almost as much revenue due to their higher price. We again see the same dip in more recent revenue though, 2017 was only 46% of 2016′s revenue, and 2018 looks even worse so far.
Remember, this fall in revenue coincidences with an increase in the total number of releases, so to fully comprehend the drop on revenue, let’s look at the average sales per VN.

 
First, we should note that this massively overestimates the average revenue generated as it assumes every user pays full price. I know devs who would sell their soul for 282k per VN. Oh wait, they already did when they signed up for Steam... (just kidding, I do like Steam, but it has issues). The important aspect here isn’t the y-axis total which is unreliable, but the consistent downwards trend.
But it might not be as bleak as it seems, older VNs are more likely to have been in bundles and in Steam sales, so their revenue is likely overestimated compared with more recent releases. So I’d be hesitant to claim that revenue is necessarily dropping, but I think we can confidently claim that revenue isn’t increasing.

VN Reviews
Nostalgia for a past golden age is common everywhere, not least among VN fans. It’s not uncommon to hear that newly released VNs aren’t as good as older ones, but can we get any empirical data on this point? We can get close by looking at the Steam reviews of VNs over time.

Each dot represents the average thumbs up/down ratio for any VNs released that month.
Within the JVN market, we can see some truth to the nostalgia viewpoint. Older releases were more consistently rated higher. But that isn’t to say there aren’t new highly rated JVNs. They still maintain enviously high scores overall.
As for EVNs, while they had consistently scored lower than JVNs, they’re catching up and are now pretty comparable in review ratings of JVNs.
Just for fun, let’s see how the total review count compares between VNs.

The two free-VN spikes are for Emily is Away and DDLC.
As I’m sure anyone familiar with the VN community can tell you, JVN fans are vocal, and it shows in the total reviews VNs get. Despite there being only half as many JVNs as EVNs, they still attract more reviews than EVNs do. This is perhaps because JVNs are typically far longer than EVNs, so might be worth the time of writing a review.
What free-VN fans lack in the wallet, they make up for in their word-count. Although this is massively skewed by two free VNs which compromise 70% of all free-VN reviews: Emily is Away and DDLC. They seem anomalies rather than trends. As shown by the graph when we exclude those two:

*Excluding Emily is Away and DDLC.
Despite the drop in position, free-VNs still out-perform what we’d expect given their lower count of total owners, but that may be because EVN and JVN totals include users who own the VN but have never read it. Whereas the free-VN total only includes those who have logged playtime in that VN, so there’s a larger pool of possible reviewers.

Potential Issues
There are a few sources of uncertainty in the dataset. The selection of users who have set their profiles to public might not be representative of the wider Steam userbase. It probably undercounts more casual fans who are less likely to configure their Steam profile.
We also don’t know when someone purchased a VN, so it’s possible VN sales are increasing, but a lot of that money is going to older releases, especially if they’re in bundles and Steam sales.
In inclusion of VNs in game bundles may be distorting the image of the VN fandom, as it’ll include those who have little interest in the medium and only own a VN by happenstance.
We should also remember that “Steam” is not synonymous with the VN market. There are plenty of competitors in the VN scene, namely Mangagamer and itch.io, who tend to cater to different tastes than Steam does. So we’re only getting a partial picture of the Western VN scene.

Conclusion
There’s data here to support both the optimistic and pessimistic commentary. On the positive side, there have never been more VNs being released as there are now. EVNs are improving with higher average ratings and a few have reached mainstream attention.
On the pessimistic side, it seems like there are ever more VNs competing for a fanbase that isn’t significantly growing. While I’d be wary of claiming profits are falling, it seems highly likely they aren’t increasing, and a stagnant market is not a healthy one.
Personally, I think the future is bright. While VNs might not be destined to become blockbuster successes, there is enough of sustainable fanbase to support lots of indie developers, who are the most prone to innovate and write interesting new stories. As a VN fan, I’m excited to see what comes next~
---
I hope you found the article interesting. I had wanted to include a section analysing the Steam users, how many VNs do JVN fans purchase compared to EVN fans etc. But I want to spend a little longer going into more depth on it, so I’ll have a post up next week on that. If you’re interested in more until then, check out my other tumblr analysis posts, look out for updates on my twitter, or give me a yell on Discord (Sunleaf_Willow ／(^ n ^=)＼#1616). Special thanks to /u/8cccc9 for collaborating on the analysis, and Part-time Storier for proof-reading.
I just do these analyses for fun, but if you want to support my work with a tip, I accept small donations at ko-fi.

Here is a list of VNs officially released in english, I will likely not update this list anymore after August 2021 as I don't see much of a point in it anymore with improvements to the search function of vndb.
Orange text means confirmed for an official english release while yellow text means that a part has been released but not the entire VN.
I have also made a list with the ones with physical release, this list is sorted the same way as this but also has info on where the titles can be bought and if it is available 
List of physical english releases of VNs
MangaGamer (Store)
 
Sekai Project (Homepage)/Denpasoft (Store)
 
JAST USA (Store)
 
NekoNyan (Store)
 
Frontwing (Homepage)
 
Sol Press (Store)
 
Shiravune (Loves DRM, especially Denuvo)
 
Visual Arts
 
Fruitbat Factory (Store)
 
MoeNovel (Burn in hell)
 
Cherry Kiss Games (Homepage)
 
Winged Cloud
 
Degica
 
Aksys Games (Store)
 
XSEED Games (Store)
 
NIS America (Store NA, Store EU)
PQube
 
Others (Japanese)
 
Others (not japanese)
 
Himeya Soft (Bankrupt)
 
Hirameki International (Quit the VN market)
 
SakuraGame/Paradise Project (Machine translated, do not buy from them)
 

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

Gochuumon wa usagi desu ka I found to be quite good, personally I felt like it managed the relaxed and cute atmosphere really well, I actually liked it a whole lot more than the anime, felt like it worked better in regards to things such as comedic timing. It is of course really childish, but if you liked the anime or manga you are probably really going to like the VN.
As for the Sakurasou one I found it to be a nice read, they handle the characters quite well and the jokes worked pretty well. The story works well with the series and the characters and I think it is overall pretty good. A problem I have with it though is that you need to do each route 2 times to get everything, they have these short events that last only a few minuts that you need a 2nd playthrough of the route to get, also there is a new game+ thing which forces you to begin from scratch if you want that extra scene. Also there is a gameplay thing where you have to choose who works on what and this will determine which route you get into, so it can be a pain in the ass going through the same thing again. So ye a good VN, but with some stupid decisions regarding gameplay and unlocking events.
The To Love Ru VN I found to be quite a disappointment. I really love the manga and the anime of To Love Ru (well the anime after season 1) and so I expected to really like it. Though my problems with it was that in many cases it lended too much from the original series doing pretty much just the same thing, but tamer due to restrictions of being on the Vita. The different routes were quite different in quality in my opinion with some being rather good and some being really bad, I thougth the Yami route was especially bad. While it does lend a lot from the anime and manga it does have some original content as well that at times are nice, so it is not horrible, though I think they could have done a much better job with it. Also there is this odd compression that makes everything look a lot worse than it should have, not sure why. Also the VN bugged out on me right before unlocking the last few CGs and stopped saving (can't save at all on any save file), then I deleted my data skipped through what I had gone through and right as I finished my last route the same problem occured, this is also something that seems to be more widespread since I managed to find some japanese sites where people were asking for help, didn't find an answer though.
Plastic Memories and Re;Zero VNs are still on my backlog, so ye can't really say much about them.
I am currently reading New Game! The Challenge Stage, feels like it is a bit lacking compared to the anime, since I feel like the animation was quite important for the mood of the scenes in the anime, but I am not really that far into it and I think it will pick up towards the later half.
 
Maybe if people are interested I could do some reviews of some of these.

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

That's a really fantastic collection :D. It's always nice to look at collection pics, and VN collection pics especially since they seem to be relatively rare. I said it before in a thread of yours a few weeks ago but the PE physical copy is the one I'd want most but I think I've missed the boat on that one .
If you don't mind sharing, what did you think of ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two and Gin'iro, Haruka? And also, what are the two Favorite titles in the second Japanese PC VN pic?
It's also surprising to see how many of those VNs have animes as well... 

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

I haven't played them yet, while I have a big collection I haven't really played that many of them. Regarding the japanese titles I have so far played 5 titles on vita and 1 on PS4 and haven't really started on PC, kind of wanted to use the console ones to get better in japanese before going to the PC ones, but pretty sure I should be able to read Hanasaki Work Springs easily so will probably start reading it in not too long. Gin'iro Haruka will probably take me a while considering the length of it.
The collection is a result of a trip I had to Japan (all the physical PC titles), importing lots of VNs based on anime since they are rather easy and a good way to practise japanese + being fun and also just collecting the titles I wanted that were available in english in case they went out of print.
So ye I have a very long backlog, slowly getting through them though.

Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

Grisaia complete box

English visual novels with NSFW cover
 
Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end

 
As you can see I have quite a lot.

Don't worry about it.
Well with the quote you have at least perserved the list in its current state which can be a bit fun for me to look back on after a while when more titles are added.
 
On another note I would like to remove the only phone part of the list, seeing as it can be found in the quote I don't really feel like keeping it in the main list.
The visual novels only released on phone are pretty much all otome games with almost no votes on vndb and due to the share amount of recently released ones are the worst part of the list to maintain
If anyone wants it to be kept inn please say so, if I don't hear anything by the begining of next month I will remove it.
Also I would like to note that I have no intention of removing anything other than the only phone part so be assured that all the other things are safe on the list.

SG+Sekai+Moenovel combines their power to destroy visual novels outside of Japan.

SG+Sekai+Moenovel combines their power to destroy visual novels outside of Japan.

SG+Sekai+Moenovel combines their power to destroy visual novels outside of Japan.

I'm 22 yrs old russian guy. Recently finished uni and been having a little break lately. I've started visual novels with everlasting summer about 4 years ago. I enjoyed it a lot and then decided to try fate stay night. My favorite VNs are Clannad and G-senjou no maou. Having finished virtue's last reward I've been disappointed in english translation (as it is made for slightly altered englisih voiceover) and so one year ago I've set out on an arduous quest of learning japanese on my own.

Currently, I am reading Baldr Sky dive 1, which is my third vn in japanese. Finished second route yesterday. Like it a lot with all the mech battle mixups (btw last boss was op). Aiming to go for little busters after this series. Would like to read it in jp but ithvnr can't capture the steam version which complicates things.

I'm shy and somewhat socially anxious, so I may not be very active in here, but it seems like a great place. Got my vndb link in profile if you want to know about my general preferences. I also do other gaming and watch anime every now and again with my favorites being angel beats and welcome to nhk.

Hope I will get along with everyone and get a place to discuss things I read seeing as there's only one person I know who reads VNs and he only knows Russian, so I can't discuss most of it with him as not many VNs get translated to russian.

SG+Sekai+Moenovel combines their power to destroy visual novels outside of Japan.

I would recommend Princess Evangile
Btw making a VNDB link is kind of nice so people can see what you have read when asking for recommendations.

Just checked twitter and found 
Edit: Here is the follow up to it 
 

Welcome to my introduction thread and to fuwanovel of course!