Are Visual Novels readers/players a niche?

[InvictusCobra]

Title. 

I can't help but wonder if the VN community/readers in general are few and far between. I've seen many stances regarding Novels such as the usual "Everything is porn" or "omg, boring, go watch anime instead.". When I explained what Novels were to a couple of friends, they instantly began to abhorre them and think they are a waste of time (one even said I ruined Fate/Zero for him because I showed him where Fate/Stay Night came from). 

Anway, do you believe there is a big global market for Visual Novels? And how many people do you think read them for the F/SNs, the Muv Luvs, the Rewrites, Clannads,etc...? Are most of the readers in it for the Nukiges? 

I don't mind if no actual numbers are posted, just give your opinions and assumptions.

[Nosebleed]

I don't think visual novels will ever stop being niche, at least not in the next century.

I do believe the niche has potential to be more globalized, but, just like otaku culture, it will likely always be a niche.

 

I find very few visual novel fans outside of actual visual novel communities which speaks for itself.

 

The only people who I managed to get into visual novels only did it because they were anime/manga/LN fans already so it was just a new medium for them to enjoy otaku culture.

 

In terms of western visual novels, there's an even more niche market since they don't have a bigger culture like the otaku culture to associate themselves with, and when they do try do associate with it, the results are often pretty bad due to the stigmas associated with it and just the fact that when you try to imitate Japan you just end up producing a weeb product.

 

The real potential in my opinion is in proper western styled visual novels which have the potential to create their own new niche and expand, without relying on already existing sub cultures, this is probably the most liable way to grow the visual novel niche today and I've definitely seen an improvement in the quality of OELVNs lately, some even managed to make me want to buy them which is rare.

 

But at the end of the day, in my opinion, visual novels can only grow so much, and I don't think they'll ever be huge, but they do have the potential to be more widespread at the very least.

And if you ask me about it, I honestly think niche is better, because when things go mainstream, they tend to deteriorate quite a bit, and I don't want to see that happen to my porn visual novels  (pls no more Sakura games...).

[Satsuki]

As long as shitty stuffs like Sakura Spirit are still on Steam, people will still think of VN as some boring crap only good for fap.

As long as people still treat VN as porn game, VN market won't be able to grow big.

Let just accept the fact that we are social outcast

[Soulless Watcher]

Of course visual novels are a niche market. First off Japanese VNs are hardly ever localized in other languages on release dates, because there is very low profit from doing so. The oelvn market is still very small and relatively unknown, with no true visual novels ever making a big commercial success (I know there are some who consider telltale games and banner saga visual novels, but I cannot accept them as signs that the oelvn market is flourishing). There are also weird porn laws that make certain elements found in visual novels illegal in several countries. Not to mention that there is also a incredibly negative view of anything with sexuality in the States, where all the religious prudes gather to damn people to hell for fapping.

 

The rise of Sekai Project may be a sign that visual novels are becoming a bit more popular outside of Japan, but does that mean that someday we will be able to pick up a all-ages version of Muv-Luv from the local walmart or gamestop?

 

Haha no.

[Mephisto]

yes

[Zalor]

I don't think visual novels will ever stop being niche, at least not in the next century.

I do believe the niche has potential to be more globalized, but, just like otaku culture, it will likely always be a niche.

 

The real potential in my opinion is in proper western styled visual novels which have the potential to create their own new niche and expand, without relying on already existing sub cultures, this is probably the most liable way to grow the visual novel niche today and I've definitely seen an improvement in the quality of OELVNs lately, some even managed to make me want to buy them which is rare.

 

But at the end of the day, in my opinion, visual novels can only grow so much, and I don't think they'll ever be huge, but they do have the potential to be more widespread at the very least.

 

[Dokken]

Well, people love it when they love something that has a small community. Sad to say but everyone is a bit of a hipster. For the community itself, I have to say not a lot of people read VN only for nukiges, I mean we could have expected much more people. I think Visual Novel have his place and can grow even more. Being mainstream isn't necessarily a bad thing. More VN will be made, that means more choices, more VN that will be translated by " professionals " or not. @Zalor you said that anime becoming mainstream had a bad effect on the community, can you explain ? I want to understand your point of view but I don't see " real " inconveniences.

[Soulless Watcher]

 Anime has practically become mainstream at this point, and in my opinion that has had adverse affects on the anime community. I don't want a repeat of what happened to the anime community to happen with the VN community. 

 

Im sensing alot of possible funimation/crunchyroll/sao/aot/shounen hate.

[Darklord Rooke]

The real potential in my opinion is in proper western styled visual novels which have the potential to create their own new niche and expand, without relying on already existing sub cultures, this is probably the most liable way to grow the visual novel niche today and I've definitely seen an improvement in the quality of OELVNs lately, 

 

I agree and disagree. I don't think visual novels as we know it will ever become popular, but as you mentioned OELVNs have the potential to go so many different directions from their Japanese counterparts. This is both good and bad in my view. The good thing is that talented writers have more potential in a western market since they don't have the restrictions that exist in the Japanese market. . 

 

Those are my thoughts as well.

[Zalor]

Im sensing alot of possible funimation/crunchyroll/sao/aot/shounen hate.

 

Hmmm.... I actually like Funimation and sometimes even enjoy their dubs. I have mixed views of Crunchyroll, but I think overall it's a useful site. No, I was thinking of Myanimelist mostly (and the forums on Crunchyroll suck too). Anyway, I don't want to stray too far off topic. But anime was really obscure 20 - 30 years ago in the west, and look at it now. I definitely think the same could happen to VNs (which again, would be both a good and bad thing).    

[Nimbus]

Visual Novels will likely remain a niche hobby in our lifetime. I think the best we can hope for is that we will see is Japanese Companies acknowledging the global market (however small) and working with them to make the medium as widespread as possible.

[Fred the Barber]

I can't imagine VNs being anything but niche outside of Japan (and I'm pretty sure they also are and will remain niche inside of Japan, though I could easily be wrong about that one). I just went to the otaku fest that is Sakura-Con, and in a place that was teeming with thousands of anime fans, many of whom had traveled large distances (hundreds of miles) and/or created detailed costumes to show off their dedication to their anime hobby, I'd estimate there were perhaps a hundred people there who even knew what a Visual Novel was (based on number of people I saw attending the only two Visual Novel-oriented panels at the convention).

 

So, based on that admittedly highly anecdotal evidence and arbitrary resulting estimate, it seems like the current population of VN players is already a tiny minority of self-selected enthusiastic otakus.

 

Now, here's one actual source of data:

- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/clannad-official-english-release

- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/the-grisaia-trilogy-three-huge-visual-novels-for-p

 

Probably every English-speaking VN player heard about that Clannad Kickstarter, but it still had fewer than 6,000 total backers. Certainly every Clannad supporter heard about Grisaia, since Sekai Project sent emails to all the Clannad people telling them they should back Grisaia too

 

Now, maybe I'm too generous, but I believe a decent percentage of English-speaking VN players who saw it kicked that Clannad kickstarter, for a variety of reasons (most of which were probably to the effect of "support the medium" more than anything else - consider that the average kick to either of those translations was for > $100); say, 20% of the population? Then that leaves you with a ballpark 30,000 people. That's a pretty ridiculously small population, and frankly could even be an overly optimistic estimate.

 

Bottom line: I'm pretty certain there's not a lot of us (outside of the Japanese audience), and it's almost certainly only the premium price that Japanese otakus are willing to pay that's keeping the medium afloat.

[InvictusCobra]

I don't think visual novels will ever stop being niche, at least not in the next century.

I do believe the niche has potential to be more globalized, but, just like otaku culture, it will likely always be a niche.

 

I find very few visual novel fans outside of actual visual novel communities which speaks for itself.

 

The only people who I managed to get into visual novels only did it because they were anime/manga/LN fans already so it was just a new medium for them to enjoy otaku culture.

[Abyssal Monkey]

Yes, they are, and they will stay a niche market for a long time, possibly forever, and I have no issue with that.

 

VN's as a medium face problems that no matter how many people scream "OELVN" in this thread will fix.  OELVN may help repair/change the reputation that VN's aren't a serious medium, but they still don't fix the overlaying problem.  In my view, besides the major hurdle that VN's (and for that matter games in general) have of not being perceived as serious, is the fact that the medium itself is just not very conducive to mass production or marketing with our current technology.  

 

In history books used to have to be hand written, and therefore cost a lot of money to produce, and thus were limited to the upper class and nobility.  I haven't done much research, but I assume movies in much the same way when first produced were far and few inbetween and cost a fortune to make. It has been long enough that these two, however, are now established and have a proven process and technology to create massive amounts of them on a budget with ease every year.  These are our two major competitors.

 

When people read visual novels (at least what the people screaming OELVN want to believe), they are reading them for the story.  Unfortunately, books can also tell a story in the exact same way, hence the "novel" part of visual novel.  Now, before you can claim that books don't have visuals (well, that depends on what you are looking at), I'm going to point at movies as the other extreme and say that they can provide us with amazing visuals currently and also satisfy the story factor.  

 

As stated before, both Books and Movies are far easier produced than VN currently, and this is the second problem besides the image problem.  Both of them have already overcome the stigma of being the scapegoat of the media, and are now taken seriously as a medium, and are now far easier to produce.  This leads into the third less obvious problem: distribution.  

 

As it stands now, almost every device can display either a movie or read a text file as they are standardized formats.  VN's do not have a standardized format, and can not be accessed at any time or place on any device, while their two most major competitors can be.  You can try and dismiss this as me talking out my ass, or that movies and books aren't the major competitor, or that they don't need to be all accessible, but I'm going to point to mobile games to prove you wrong.  Once smartphones got into the hands of at least the USA, the mobile game market EXPLODED.  This has had such a profound effect on games development, that now you are seeing the microtransactions, which were pioneered on mobile steadily invade games from major companies' releases.  Remember, this has only happened because mobile games got into the hands of a vast majority of people in a very easy to access way.

 

In summation, VN's have three massive and interlocking issues they would need to conquer before ever becoming mainstream:  

Social Scapegoat/Stigma

Ease of Production

Ease of Access

and OELVN's only answer the first one.

/essay

After posting this, while it was processing, I immediately realized I wrote an actual three part essay complete with a thesis statement, and had found it incredibly hilarious that I was using skills that my English class taught me.  Guess you actually do use things you learn in school without realizing it.

 

I know it sounds like I hate OELVN's from this post, but its not true, I just want to point out that OELVN is not the savior of VN's, far from it, and as a medium, they have massive hurdles to jump over before ever becoming not niche.

[InvictusCobra]

Well, I can see where you're coming from and I think you stated valid points. However, I disagree that movies and books can do the same thing as VNs. This is just my own perspective and experience, but here is why I prefer Novels to reading books (I don't read books, unless they are mandatory for courses) and to cinema (nowadays, it's like books; if I don't have to watch one for college, I watch one like... once in a blue moon):

 

Disclamer: This is my opinion, not facts nor dogma. If this doesn't apply to you, that's fine. This is all based on my experience and yours might be different.

 

1. The array of choices available:

 

In Visual Novels, you can decide which character you want to get closer to. While it is like books or films, where the options are bound to what the writer gives you, I usually find that Novels give you more proximity to the cast and their stories, causing a bigger attachment, This ties in with the power of choice in terms of Bad Ends. In films or books (if it's not a "your own adventure" book), everything is linear in the sense that you merely watch and don't participate in the story. In most Novels, you have to make choices which can have far reaching consequences in terms of the story; for example, choosing A over B might cause a Bad End, thus leaving you with a feeling of having screwed up, being responsable for the character's misery and outcome.

 

2. The product of many mediums

 

One of the main things that sets Novels apart from books in my opinion, is the combination of many tools to create something more. Having a CG to help visualise what is happening and the character's expressions causes bigger empathy and emotional reaction from the reader. Secondly, having music which was purposely produced for those moments helps the experience, it creates a different reaction on the reader than if you were just reading words on a sheet of paper. Finally, the voice acting helps the reader in terms of attachment to the characters. By actually verbally expressing what is going on and how they are feeling, more impact can be caused with a scene or moment.

 

3. How a big a time investment is necessary

Now this one is more directed at films and shows, as books can be as big as a Visual Novel or even bigger, and might have more chance to start a saga/continuity than a single Novel. In a film, you get on average two hours duration. This is enough time to cause an impact on a person, and even make it a memorable experience for the viewer. The average Visual Novel has a duration of 10-30 hours of reading (using VNDB criteria and not accounting for the reader's reading speed), which allows for longer interaction, more exposition, more moments to share and bonds to make, things that intend to nurture the Novel-Reader relationship. This will allow for a more developed and fundamented story and characters, which enhance the experience and how attached the reader is when he reaches the end of the Novel.

 

These are a few that come to mind.

[Darklord Rooke]

In films or books (if it's not a "your own adventure" book), everything is linear in the sense that you merely watch and don't participate in the story. 

[InvictusCobra]

Of course, the mobile market is rising and will not stop in the near future. Visual Novels are already on handhelds to a certain extent with the PSP/Vita and Nintendo DS, albeit having to whip out a portable console to read a book is much more of a hassle than just looking at your phone (something you were most likely already doing) and reading a Novel as an App. There are some available, although the ones I tried were like a year ago and were exclusively Otome games without a lot of content or substance. While Novels are already "portable", they aren't in most popular way, and getting a translated Visual Novel for your portable console is still something that doesn't happen very often (I'm not aware of the selection of translated Novels on the PSP and DS, so don't quote me on that). 

Being on mobiles is one of the best ways to gain attention right now, and hey, that's why even good old "Camaraderie, adventure and steel on steel (...)" is available on mobile phones and tablets now, right?

[Chronopolis]

Probably the VN us VN players are use to are different the VN's that could become more prevalent (they are long, character and route based).

 

You don't have to immerse the reader in the protag's view. You don't need to use first person. You could tell the story in third person, like a picture book fairy tale. You don't need multiple routes, etc, etc.

 

There are a ton of ways to use to the VN medium.

 

Although, I know there are quite literary japanese writers who are attached to writing for the VN medium. In those kind of VN's, the text and the text context holds significantly more weight than the other elements. In that sense, VN's are like a different kind of canvas for writers. The writing style you use for VN is a bit different (just for ADV, you can practically do whatever you want in NVL style). We probably won't see those kinds of really deep literary vn's in the west because those writers would have to learn about the VN medium and take a liking to it.

[sanahtlig]

Gather anime fans in a room and you'll always end up with a subset who are into visual novels--though in many cases they won't admit it publicly.  The currently tiny market for VNs doesn't reflect so much the narrow appeal of VNs as it does the narrow audience that's willing to pay for them.  VN players are pretty common.  VN customers, not so much.

 

Just look at the number of registered users on VNDB (84,000) and compare to the volume sales of a popular Mangagamer eroge (1000-2000).  Then consider that probably only a fraction of VN fans bother to register an account on VNDB.

[Soulless Watcher]

Gather anime fans in a room and you'll always end up with a subset who are into visual novels--though in many cases they won't admit it publicly.  The currently tiny market for VNs doesn't reflect so much the narrow appeal of VNs as it does the narrow audience that's willing to pay for them.  VN players are pretty common.  VN customers, not so much.

 

Just look at the number of registered users on VNDB (84,000) and compare to the volume sales of a popular Mangagamer eroge (1000-2000).  Then consider that probably only a fraction of VNDB fans bother to register an account on VNDB.

Um, you do realize that VNDB is global and Mangagamer caters to the english speaking market right?

[sanahtlig]

Um, you do realize that VNDB is global and Mangagamer caters to the english speaking market right?

[Soulless Watcher]

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vndb.org

 

Greater than 55% of VNDB's traffic comes from countries where the primary language is English.  English is also a very common second language in many first-world countries, far moreso than Japanese.  Considering VNDB's information is all written in English, it's no surprise that it'd be mainly used by English users.  Also consider that while browsers who don't know English may exist, they're probably less likely to register.

 

Compare to Mangagamer's traffic:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mangagamer.com

 

Seems like VNDB sees a greater proportion of visitors from English-speaking countries than even Mangagamer does.  Would VNDB be considered more global if its proportion of visitors from primarily English-speaking countries is less?

[sanahtlig]

Ok fair points, however (according to a quick google search) there are around 15 million anime fans in the usa (although that info is a bit dubious I would love if someone could find more solid info). So, even if we assume that all VNDB users are from the states, that means you would only get one visual novel fan for every 179 anime fans (assuming my math is right, which it probably isn't). That still isn't a whole lot.

What's your source for the number of anime fans in the US?  "Google it" doesn't exactly cut it.

 

Edit: This source suggests that Crunchyroll has 11 million unique visitors per month: http://crunchyroll.com.hypestat.com/

 

That's probably a decent estimate of US anime fans.

 

My experience with the high ratio of VN fans to anime fans probably comes from exposure to anime niches that are enriched for VN fans, including college clubs and JRPG communities.  VNs attract a very specific demographic, which can be observed by looking at the Alexa info for VNDB and Mangagamer (Alexa also used to list age ranges in free mode).  Curiously, Crunchyroll is female-dominated.  I didn't expect that.

 

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/crunchyroll.com

[Soulless Watcher]

What's your source for the number of anime fans in the US?  "Google it" doesn't exactly cut it.

 

It wasn't a reliable source, that's why I didn't post it

 

 

Edit: This source suggests that Crunchyroll has 11 million unique visitors per month: http://crunchyroll.com.hypestat.com/

 

That's probably a decent estimate of US anime fans.

 

I would like to point out that Crunchyroll does supply subtitles in other languages, but yeah 11 million does sound like a better estimate. My source may or may not have included MLP fans (shivers in mild disgust).

[tahu157]

I haven't read all of the replies, so I apologize if I'm repeating anything anyone has said already.
 
Reading for entertainment in general doesn't happen as much as watching TV shows or movies or playing non-VN video games unless a book gets a movie.  So I doubt many people would turn to primarily text-based games as an alternative to their fast-paced shooters and whatnot.
 
This is sort of the same point as the last one I guess, but VNs are a slow burn where most games released today you could probably beat in a day if you wanted to.  I think a lot of people have gotten to a point where they want and expect that speed and quick game turnover, and have trouble slowing down to VN speed for more than a few sessions.  I know I was ready for something different towards the end of F/SN's Heaven's Feel route, and again towards the end of Hollow Ataraxia.
 
 
I'm pretty happy with the size of the English-speaking VN community though.  It's not too big, but it's not microscopic either.