Why do you play these games ?

As the title suggests.

With the market not doing very well in the West at the moment, and with small symptons (though, hopefully, temporary) that it's on rough shores in Japan, I think we should all evaluate why we play these games.

I myself will give an answer, but I'd rather hear other people's opinions first before I give my own (also, mine is fairly long)

[DragonmasterX]

-Beautiful CG artwork. For normal genres, to see such beautiful artwork, you'd usually have to buy separately sold artbooks.
-Good reading practice, I generally learn more about Japanese from ADV than other genres.
-Good story, characters
-Full Voice Acting

[Shii]

Off the top of my head:
- Most obviously, the gameplay mechanism of visual novels does not rely on such ridiculous methods of achievement as fighting monsters, or tedious puzzle-solving, but rather the story develops and you read along, making judgements along the way based on your intuition and common sense. This goes especially for more involved ADVs such as Phoenix Wright.
- Personally, I suck at computer games. :( Although, this can be combined with the above point as I don't really see any incentive to win in most games, so I never practice.
- I much enjoy the artwork over the blandness of American games such as Halo. It makes the games an active pleasure to watch as you are reading.
- Choiceless novels such as Narcissu and Planetarian are an exciting proposition as a combination of my three favorite media: music/SFX, CG, and text. Even if the writing isn't exactly the best, the combination is still engaging.
- The fact that most games are translated from Japanese often adds the element of looking at another culture, and requires the additional art of translation which contributes to the three arts above. That might mean nothing more than being able to read something and know whether it came out of the translator's mind of Yoda or Vader.

[Agilis]

I love to read, plain and simple. My wishlist of light novels and other books grows every few months, and I'm simply running out of shelf space for books at home.

Lovable voice acting, strong characterizations, good music, all are extra bonuses, but so long as there's a strong story and solid writing style, and nothing particularly ruins the experience (tsukihime's music, I'm looking at you here), I'll probably love it.

And sometimes I even fall in love with something long enough to translate it >_> <_<

Being unable to read Japanese, my sampling of visual novels is admittedly very limited (some American releases like Ever17, Planetarian, fan-translated works and demos, etc.). However, the main draw for me would be the artwork and some of the story ideas.

From what I've seen so far, the medium hasn't yet matured to a point where the writing can be taken seriously. I'm especially picky when it comes to character dialogue, which typically ranges from awful to passable in most video games. For that reason, VN scripts don't tend to impress me.

Nonetheless, the genre is a good proof of concept. There's an awful lot of promise, and with ambitious works like Ever17 and Narcissu, we have clear ideas of what could potentially be realized.

Most obviously, the gameplay mechanism of visual novels does not rely on such ridiculous methods of achievement as fighting monsters, or tedious puzzle-solving, but rather the story develops and you read along, making judgements along the way based on your intuition and common sense.

I don't consider these things to be games. A visual novel is a form of interactive entertainment (albeit a more passive one), but so is a Choose Your Own Adventure novel or even an "interactive TV" experiment, where viewers collectively vote on what should happen next.

For this form of entertainment to be accepted, the game industry really needs to broaden beyond the core gaming demographic. Visual novels don't appeal to most game fans (generally males between 13-25 years of age who expect highly interactive products. That's why the visual novel can only be a fringe genre, with eroge proving to be the dominant form. Until people's perception of digital entertainment broadens, it'll remain the same way). However, there's possibly a significant market out there that might enjoy these things if given half the chance. If the industry were to reach out to these people, the quality of visual novels would probably improve through the involvement of more mainstream/renowned writers. As of now, writing standards seem far below that of a good novel or film, which is no way to attract a mass market.

Late, we've reached new heights with the Nintendo DS, but it'll be a while longer before a truly segmented market emerges.

[Misu]

For me, it is a love of reading that gets me into Visual Novels. I've always enjoyed games with heavy plot development, anime with heavy plot development, heck, really anything with heavy plot development.

Admittedly, there are many times a lot of visual novels that lack this, so there is another draws me to them. Unlike anime, manga, and games, visual novels let you look into the life of an fictional character to the mundane points. This may sound stupid, but reading through many days of say Kanon, without much plot progression, but just the banter of the characters living their daily lives, helps me connect with them and feel for them as just that, human beings.... though in the case of most visual novels, they become normal human beings with something extraordinary happening to them.

Really, the only other medium that can delivery the mundanities of characteral living is books, but since I am much more of a visual person then an imaginative one, I am drawn to visual novels over books.

[tea panda]

Originally Posted by Misu

For me, it is a love of reading that gets me into Visual Novels. I've always enjoyed games with heavy plot development, anime with heavy plot development, heck, really anything with heavy plot development.

Misu and Agilis summed up my feelings as well. Some of the most impactful stories I've ever read have come from visual novels, and in all honesty, the entire experience of it just makes things hit much harder than simply reading a book.

[DaFool]

It's a combination of factors.

-ANIME. Primarily its through watching anime such as Kanon2002, Comic Party, and Tsukihime. Its said they came from visual novels / ADV, so I became curious as to what they were.

-NNL / INSANI. A major influence was No Name Losers (now Insani), when they translated Mizuiro 2003 OVA -- my most memorable eroge-based OVA I watched ever, and when they first released the Wind demo. If I recall correctly prior to them there was even a group called bishoujo fansubs who translated OPs for bishoujo games. I downloaded some of them and was further curious about the games they came from.

-DEPRESSION. In around 2003 I was in a depressed state and was out window shopping in the shady areas of the city and looking inside shady stores and noticed XChange and Come See Me Tonight. I didn't really know what they were except they looked similar to some hentai videos I've seen so I thought, what the heck they look interesting. I credit those titles as giving me practice sitting long hours just reading.

-ANIME ART. I used to be a hardcore gamer, playing mostly action FPS and RTS. Then a friend said that you ain't a gamer until you've played RPGs. So play RPGs I did, mostly Japanese console RPGs. While the battles were nice, what really hooked me are the handdrawn anime style art, and the (linear) stories. I thought, hmmm, would be nice if I could just play some just for the art and stories. Lo and behold, visual novels / ADVs! As I had more commitments after college, I naturally lost my hardcore gaming drive. I also started to suck at conventional (action) games, as my motor skills dwindled.

-NO HARDWARE. My last console was the Sega Dreamcast. Just when the PS2 came out I was just being weaned off being a hardcore gamer and becoming more of a casual gamer. As a casual gamer I wanted easier gaming experiences that required more brain activity than hand activity. As a result my core games now are mostly visual novels / ADVs with a smattering of the occasional RTS. I rarely even play RPGs since they are too consuming relative to the actual amount of time I have. I also never bothered ugrading my computer, its a good thing most visual novels work on 6+ year old computers

-NO TIME FOR ANYTHING ELSE. Lately I don't even find time for longer visual novels nor even strategy games. Partly because I am now in my workaholic years, partly because I am now even too lazy and no longer willing to install gigabyte+ games. My core gaming experience now is limited to translated al|together / insani games / demos, untranslated short commercial one-shots (those where theres sex with only 1 or 2 characters), and Comiket doujin games, many of which incorporate visual novel elements. EDIT: Also I play many many fangames, simply because they're short.

[Message]

Originally Posted by DaFool

-NO TIME FOR ANYTHING ELSE. Lately I don't even find time for longer visual novels nor even strategy games.

This is the very reason why I in actuality rarely play VNs at all. The (very) few larger titles I've played all involved forcefully locking myself up in my room for a couple of days and playing the whole title from beginning to end.
Sleeping an average of 10 hours a day and spending most of my free time online with projects and contacts, I just don't get around to reading at all. About why I would want to read VNs I can only join tea panda in his statement, Agi and Misu summed it up nicely.

So I can get romantically involved with bunch of cute anime girls, what else.

-Artwork/CG
-Story
-Soundtrack
-Characters (read Moe)
-And the heavy connections one can develop due to the detail of character interaction as I believe was already mentioned.

[devilforgemaster]

To play these games you don't need to upgrade your machine.
These games are keyboard saver..also mouse saver if you turn on the auto mode
Compare to dead-tree novels, visual novels have lots of CGs, bgm, voice, effects.
You don't have to play it in full screen and you can pause it whenever you like to so it's easy to switch to other programs.

Originally Posted by devilforgemaster

These games are keyboard saver..also mouse saver if you turn on the auto mode

Keyboard saver huh, that's the first time I've heard that one :) I always seem to press enter all the time though, because I like moving at my own pace, switching over to mouse clicks if I'm tired of pressing my keys.

[ChocoEd]

Originally Posted by DaFool

-NNL / INSANI. A major influence was No Name Losers (now Insani), when they translated Mizuiro 2003 OVA -- my most memorable eroge-based OVA I watched ever, and when they first released the Wind demo.

By the way, insani and NNL are more-or-less separate groups who have occasionally collaborated on projects. It's definitely not the case that NNL turned into insani... more like NNL acted as a catalyst for insani to be formed by new people. (And we hang out in their IRC channel since it's too much hassle to bother with our own, heh heh.)

[Misu]

Originally Posted by DaFool

-NNL / INSANI. A major influence was No Name Losers (now Insani), when they translated Mizuiro 2003 OVA -- my most memorable eroge-based OVA I watched ever, and when they first released the Wind demo. If I recall correctly prior to them there was even a group called bishoujo fansubs who translated OPs for bishoujo games. I downloaded some of them and was further curious about the games they came from.

Hehe, to my knowledge, no one on insani directly even worked on Mizuiro 2k3 XD.