Trends in Visual Novels

[BunnyAdvocate]

Hi o/

I did a little analysis on changing trends in Visual Novels using the voting data on vndb if anyone is interested. I put up the first part of the series here:

https://bunnyadvocate.tumblr.com/post/159429107647/visual-novels-the-rise-of-a-medium

This is part of a whole series of posts, with my next post looking at protags, and what kinds of traits different types of protags are associating with according to an analysis of the tag distribution on vndb.

If you guys have any questions or comments about it, then I'd love to chat about it.

[Darklord Rooke]

Some pretty interesting data there  The graph on Japanese VN lengths is of particular interest to me

[mitchhamilton]

i dont like that you have 5 times as many likes as you do posts.

 

 

but seriously, this is really interesting. good work.

[Eirrir]

Wow, thank you for reporting this! It's fascinating to how OELVNs are shaping to be very different its forefather, the JVNs. And all of these trends are very good ones, in my eyes.

[BunnyAdvocate]

16 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

The graph on Japanese VN lengths is of particular interest to me

Yeah I found it quite interesting too, I was quite surprised to see such a significant change over the years. I guess the market is splintering a little, going to either length extreme rather than trying to appeal to everyone with a medium length story.

15 hours ago, mitchhamilton said:

i dont like that you have 5 times as many likes as you do posts.

Hahaha, well have a like back for your reply~

13 hours ago, Eirrir said:

It's fascinating to how OELVNs are shaping to be very different its forefather, the JVNs. And all of these trends are very good ones, in my eyes.

Yeah it's a pretty exciting time. OELVNs are finally getting the budget they need to start doing longer stories, and the stories they're writing tend to be of a different nature to their Japanese cousins. I expect the growth of the OELVN fandom is underestimated too, as they appeal to a lot of people who are unfamiliar with the wider VN scene and are unlikely to have vndb accounts.

[EdwardWongHPTIV]

As much as I have turned my nose at OELVN's in the past I've got acknowledge at least one area they lead the charge in - Linux support. This is something I've confirmed recently checking out VNDB releases. It's not really surprising considering they favor engines that allow them to painlessly target as many platforms as they can. There are a few translated VNs that have been moved to engines that provide Linux support but there are a lot less than I thought and it seems the community has a negative view of such conversions as they tend to cause complications (or outright remove features of the original). That said I personally am looking at linux support as a much more important feature since my patience with MS and windows is at an end. Combined with the fact that there are very few AAA games that I care about these days I'm making windows a 2nd class citizen - mulitboot or inside a VM if I must. Until now I've maintained a 2nd PC just for windows (mostly to avoid the inconvenience of multiboot).

TL:DR I welcome larger budget multiplatorm (linux) OELVNs. Especially ones that break free from some of the less endearing themes/tropes of the Japanese VN.

[littleshogun]

That's quite interesting data there, and as for OELVN I would said that perhaps sometimes they could be in equal with Japanese VNs in term of popularity (But not right now). The reason I said this because majority of the OELVN was quite bad to say it bluntly (Sakura series anyone), and yet there's some good OELVN like Lucid9 and of course Katawa Shoujo. In the end, as for OELVN thing I chose to just take a note at it.

PS - To be honest, for now I kind prefer Japanese VN. But I also knew that there's some interesting future for OELVN there.

[Adorabear]

Very interesting data! Good work! It's cool to be able to see how VNs are changing by looking at all of the graphs, both the Japanese VNs and the OELVNs. I am definitely looking forward to seeing the whole series of posts.  

[Yuuko]

When you don't include VNs with less than 5 rating on the release graph you pretty much kill all the Japanese amateur VNs that are the Japanese equivalent of OELVNs. Then again big amount of Japanese doujinges are not even on VNDB so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited April 17, 2017 by Kiriririri

[BunnyAdvocate]

@Kiriririri Yep, this analysis is just on what's popular so more obscure niche stuff, both in Japan and for OELVNs, aren't well represented. It's not meant to be a complete picture of the VN scene, just of what the "mainstream" is (in as much as the VN scene has a mainstream).

My analysis on trends with VN protagonists is now up:

https://bunnyadvocate.tumblr.com/post/159955558977/visual-novel-protagonists-what-are-they-made-of

I hope you guys enjoy it, I had a lot of fun analysing the data. There's some fun stuff to come in part 2, some odd connections that I didn't expect.

[BunnyAdvocate]

Part 2 of my VN protag analysis is up. Nothing too profound in it, but it's some fun data looking at what tags tend to crop up most often with different types of protags.

https://bunnyadvocate.tumblr.com/post/160500900017/visual-novel-protagonists-part-2