Random Dude

VNs are not very popular at the moment (despite what the majority of people believe). Maybe yeah compared to some years ago, when the market was nonexistent, but taking aside the very popular titles that everyone knows for, sometimes, the wrong reasons (Nekopara), and other times they deserve their popularity to a degree (Grisaia and Katawa Shoujo for different reasons each), the other VNs are not relatively popular. Just look at the recently leaked steam sales, apart from those titles the rest don't really sell huge numbers. There are several reasons: 1. Stigma around VNs generated by the Japanese counterparts and perpetuades by the English Visual Novels that desperately tried to copy the Japanese ones. Japanese people have inherently different societal and moral views and there are differences between us (Maitetsu and its controversy could serve as an example of what I'm saying). There's also a problem with the sexual content and the questionable themes, which makes normie audiences strive away from them even more. 2. Anime is popular because it's easy to access to, just like manga is to a degree, and VN's are not really very accessible unless you know what you're doing (pirating a VN for a person who is just to just click the first result in google after searching for "X free" is a difficult task to say the least, since the pirating sites are specific ones.) 3. Terrible practces by Japanese developers in Japan towards their fans, with an attitude to appeal only the existing ones and not trying to appeal for a broader audience and the English publishers doing the exact same thing (reminder that tweets don't count as real marketing, but publishers seem to think otherwise). More aggresive marketing would result in more exposure and sales, but I guess they don't want to take the risk since the money that comes from VN's is already limited? There are more reasons, but I'm lazy and don't want to expand on it more, but that's mainly it. The best we can hope for is to appeal for normie audiences in a better way, by starting to create dedicated patches for thes games, making the base one all ages and creating h patches in case the interested people want to buy them (I know these ecist already, but it should become the norm) and focus on safe themes and tropes, that will make people who are undecisive of joining the community not want to run away instantly (looking at loliges in general, which only hurt the repuation of vns). Also, more aggresive marketing from publishers and more professionality from them, and I'm sure that sooner or later they'll become more mainstream.