Any good anime games on steam asides from the ones carpe fulgar published?

[rhemi1]

So, anyone heard of a mainstream commercial translated VN?  Did it do well on sales?

In the West? The closest thing you'll find is Blazblue's story modes. Seriously. There haven't been any other commercial VN translations with anywhere near the amount of popularity, and Blazblue isn't exactly extremely popular to begin with. And hell, its pretty much just a VN tacked on to a fighting game, so it barely counts.

There are a few other commercially translated VNs, but not mainstream and they're almost exclusively eroge for the PC, translated by now defunct companies.

[Tsugumi Henduluin]

Well, there is Ever17, which is still one of the best things I've ever read. It's quite popular among the western VN community as well (and with good reason). It's even ero-free!
It's also plagued by an absurd amount of spelling mistakes, as it was literally rushed out of the door by the company that translated it. Suffice it to say, they didn't last long.

Such a shame. I would really like to legally get my hands on the other Infinity series VNs. I read some of the fantranslated ones, and they're all absurdly good. It will probably never happen, though... unless I do it myself, but that'll take a while yet. If it's even possible to license the games still, as KID went under years ago I'm just glad I managed to secure a copy of Ever17 in time.

Speaking of Ever17, 999: nine hours, nine people, nine doors was written by the same person. Pretty sure that game did reasonably well, too. It's a DS game, though. So that might be partially why. There is also Hotel Dusk and its sequel, but again, DS games.

[TheSwordUser]

1st important rule:

You do not publish Visual Novels when demography of gamers is dominated by teenagers playing Modern Warfare and Blizzard games (unless the latter enjoy reading everything in story mode).
It will be almost pointless effort. So much text to translate for so little ammount of people. This is just not worth it. You could just translate regular game with lots of interactivity, use 1/5th of the effort and sell this to many more.

VNs are just too niche to be brought to the West. How many gamers actually read books? (I don't)

[Balto]

It's a niche indeed! I must admit i would never have heard of VN's if i hadn't started watching anime. the selection to choose from VN's is huge and it has a huge success in it's native country, but you have to get into the mindset of the european/american user. We prefer games that almost need zero effort to play. I'm talking about Call of Duty, WoW, Portal(love the game) all the others, these games focus on their gameplay and not on storytelling. One of my favorite VN's is Da capo! it got translated and is available on J-list in english, but there just ain't a market to get into because you have to kind of be from the in-crowd to get the point of VN's.

Tl;Dr: VN's aren't mainstream enough for western markets

[jseah]

Shame that. 

I don't see how WoW and Portal are zero effort.  VNs are the ones with zero effort.  I mean, you could literally just set it to auto and read the text as it scrolls.  The only interaction is occasional choices. 
First person shooters, puzzlers and strategy games all require some level of skill at least.  VNs are nearly completely passive.  If anything, the eroge-types at least are pure gratification; even the stereotypical dumbed down easy games involve more effort to play. 

Companies like Key and Aquaplus, they probably cater to a different demographic/type of player than the stereotypical western gamer.  But still, that demographic ought to be there, given that it exists in Japan.  Just need to find it. 

[Tsugumi Henduluin]

I wonder if it is viable to crowdfund visual novel translations? It's a very niche market, yes, but that might make people all that more willing to pay. Look at how much money Toady One makes on a monthly basis, just from donations... granted, Dwarf Fortress has been around for a while and has gathered quite the name for itself by now, but I still think it's a fairly decent comparison.

On the other hand, Light Novels seem to suffer the same problems as Visual Novels do, with only a mere handful lasting more than one or two volumes over the past several years, and they are (probably) a lot cheaper to do. Such a sad thing

[TheSwordUser]

You know, instead of VNs, I'd like to see some more dating sims instead.
They're still heavy storywise, but unlike Visual Novels, they aren't as boring to play because it isn't just about reading (since you need to develop your in-game character).
Or, hell, let's go a step further and crowdfund a license for some raising sim from Gainax....oh wait, no, that wouldn't work, there's no raising sim that would be safe from "this game is for pedos" comments.

[Balto]

I vote for the localisation of Princess Maker then :p

Although i must admit that sims like Harvest Moon have a huge fanbase here in the west

On that note, a wetern made anime-influenced game is available on steam: Magical Diary
I'd check out the developer directly, lots of choice on their website, no localisations though, but we have the best right here

[rhemi1]

Magical Diary (and by extension, Hanako Games) is not worth the price. I'd pay 5 dollars for it, nothing more, and they're asking for 15. You'll get about 3 hours out of it, less if you use a guide. Hanako is really only known for being one of the few indie game developers, and I use the term developers loosely, to produce actual yuri content. Wouldn't go near their stuff if not for that.

Also I forgot about the Ace Attorney series, which is actually just a cleverly disguised VN. It's always been relatively popular even in the West.

Harvest Moon is actually losing popularity, even over in Japan, in favor of its spin-off cousin Rune Factory. Makes sense, though, seeing as how Rune Factory does everything HM does but better.

[Balto]

Can agree on the Hanako thing, pretty overpriced when i saw the price tag.

Rune factory is nice but i can't say that i like them more than the HM series, something about the HM series just keeps me going back for more, even though my DS version of Happiness islands keeps wiping itself!

Now Ace attourney, never looked at it that way but you are right about that Rhemi, it is a cleverly disguised VN

[GeekyJuuu]

Harvest Moon isn't dead in Japan just yet-the latest 3DS title sold VERY well. However, you're correct that RF is more popular.

Also, thanks for the heads-up on Magical Diary. I almost picked it up myself, eek. I'll wait for a sale.

[Mokinokaro]

I vote for the localisation of Princess Maker then :p

Princess Maker 2 actually was supposed to be, but the translation company folded when the game was 95% done.  There are translated versions of it out there.

[SpaceDrake]

I vote for the localisation of Princess Maker then :p

Princess Maker 2 actually was supposed to be, but the translation company folded when the game was 95% done.  There are translated versions of it out there.

To wit, the version that's out there is a leaked version of the official translation.

You can read about the whole sad, sorry affair here: http://www.softegg.com/products/pm2/pm2.php

As annoying as the situation with Project Four has gotten for us (still annoyed we can't talk about it), it's all a frolic amongst the tulips compared to what SoftEgg went through.

[neonie]

Man that doesn't look like Gainax art at all... I am not... really digging how that game (Princess Maker 2) looks.

[TheSwordUser]

Man that doesn't look like Gainax art at all... I am not... really digging how that game (Princess Maker 2) looks.

It's from 1993, thats before Eva.

Then again, I have no straight "gainax art" description in my head, all I think is "bouncing boobs" in their anime.