Visual Novels – Could There Be A Market For Them in The West?

Vgamerz writes: "The Visual Novel genre is essentially a sub-genre of Adventure and originates from Japan. They are presented by usually static graphics and text and focus on a strong narrative and branching story paths. The gameplay is usually very little allowing the player to choose decisions as they go along to allow the story to pan out based on the decisions they make however there have been visual novels that feature puzzle elements and problem solving especially the detective or lawyer themed visual novels like Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright on Nintendo DS or Kara No Shoujo on PC."

[Snookies12]

I love Visual Novels. It's nice to be able to sit down and enjoy a wonderful story from time to time. VNs also give you the option to shape the story based on your decisions. They're not focused on fancy graphics, or cheap gimmicks like most games are these days (if you can even call VNs a game). They're visually stimulating books, which I'm perfectly cool with. I just hope, if they do bring some more over, they always include options to turn off 18+ scenes. Some of these have such beautiful stories, it's a shame when they're ruined by a stupid scene that completely ruins the mood and often times just comes off as comical more than anything else.

[wishingW3L]

I hate visual novels. I like some eroge games though... Don't judge me!

[Robotronfiend]

I'd at least like the option to pick some up from the US store. I'm sure I'd like at least some of them. Making sure there are trophies is at least one way to grab a few sales.

[izumo_lee]

There are some fantastic VN that can be successful in the west like some that have already been turned into anime series. Fate/Stay Night, Clannad, Steins;Gate, for example have memorable characters in deep engaging storylines.

Katawa Shoujo proves that if done correctly there is an audience for VN. Many people think that when VN are mentioned that they are entirely 'hentai', though in actual there are a lot of quality titles that are not.

[Donnieboi]

Definately if put on mobile phones