@ Jack Sprat
"Yeah, Steam is such a freaking juggernaut in the world of visual novels right now… Part of me wonders if we’re truly seeing THE FUTURE (<-- in all caps), or if what we’re experiencing now is something of a mini-bubble that will later subside."
I don’t think we’re in a steam bubble right now, it’s more like the VN / eroge medium is finally stepping out of the shadows. I think the potential demand was always there but there was no cost effective way of promoting the medium until KS and steam came along. Anime and manga got popular quicker because us westerners are familiar with the concept of watching a cartoon or reading a comic book but VNs were and still are a more foreign and unfamiliar concept to us that requires a lot more visibility for it to gain traction.
I don’t see anything artificial or unsustainable with current levels of demand. Until VNs have caught up to manga and anime there’s still room for growth. Now if VN sales suddenly surpassed anime and manga sales and gutted Empress and Black Lilith titles were being sold for $40 on steam I’d be ready to call it a bubble.
What I do see happening though (and fairly soon) is that customers will become a little more selective with their purchases as more companies enter the market and more titles are released within the same time period. Which is why I think that JAST should start releasing some of their older games on Steam right now while the competition is less fierce. It makes sense to prioritize these steam releases of older titles as the people that buy these games are likely to also buy other future JAST titles not released on steam.
That’s not to say you couldn’t see a bubble happen. If major publishers are getting ready to do their own steam releases and a generally accepted perception exists that there will be a bubble-burst event, you may see a flood of titles hitting the market, all at the same time, causing a temporary crash (self fulfilling prophecy).
That’s just my two cents on the issue.
