Yeah, one thing I dislike about modern trends with gaming and with anime is that, for the most part, fandom is very cyclical. It’s because of the large amount of junk coming out now, people rarely sit on a show. 15+ years ago you know that, almost no matter the show, there’ll be a fanbase for it you can find, one that vastly outlives the material they are fans of.
In Japan you had those little niche communities all over, and it was even more prevalent outside of Japan due to fan translation culture. Back then you get a game, enjoy it, and then live it until the next big thing comes along. Nowadays you get a game, get another game, get another game, repeat… And people aren’t gonna make a site for the game they adore, they’re just gonna gush on Youtube or Twitter.
Kazamatsuri was probably created in response to that, but then Key went and actually made stuff happen all the time.
Still, at least for those older niches you can still stumble across them. There are fansites for ONE and Kanon heroines out there somewhere… Most of the time they aren’t even online anymore. You’ve either got to waybackmachine them or find a html file on a doujinsoft disk. Makes them all the more pleasurable to discover.