I am very certain that I would never even have heard of VNs if not for Steam, even though I have been a gamer albeit not a hardcore one for around 20 years, mainly playing strategy or RPGs. VNs were simply not on my radar at all until I tried one just because it was free on Steam - and that led to Clannad on the PC and Steins;Gate on PS3. And speaking of PS3 / PS4 there isn’t even a category of the PSN store for VNs so the few that are on that platform are hard to just stumble across. If you don’t frequent particular stores or fansites or follow news & review gamer sites it’s easy for those like me to be utterly oblivious to the genre.
I now know there are a few UK sources that do sell the hard copies although they seem to be very pricey compared to digital download. I surely wouldn’t even bother trying to get hard to find games on import then patch for English or through “less than strictly legal” means. I can live without the expurgated adult scenes.
So I am a VN fan thanks to Steam and I’m sure I’m not the only one…
