Leaderboard

I basically agree with IceD. The VN market is oversaturated and that makes producing quality works very difficult. Ironically, the industry may need to constrict and reconsolidate to produce more quality titles. Either that, or reach out to a new audience to tap a new cash source (such as the English market). If you haven't already, you might want to check out Ninetail's Machina Chronicle series the next time you're looking for gameplay eroge. I think you might've played Gears of Dragoon, but that's considered the weakest entry in the series. I played Amatsukaze and that seems like it'd be up your alley. You might want to play them in order since there is some continuity to the setting, unlike the Venus Blood series.

This trend has been somewhat slowly growing within the past few years. It might be temporary, but given the fact japanese market is heavily oversaturated at the moment, it's propably even harder to produce high quality vn's which at least cover the production expenses and bring in some profit to the companies. This, coupled with the everchanging trends might make a lot of devs shudder, especially when it's often just a single flop that might bring an entire studio crumbling down. I'm not surprised the quality is dropping in overall. A lot of studios simply revert to fail-safe practices, milking their franchise/flagship games as much as possible, since it's usually produces enough revenue to survive.