I feel like anime games hit a pretty bad roadblock during the ps3 era. That period was also really bad for japanese games in general since it was the cool thing to shit on them (just look how many articles on gaming sites talked about the death of japan. Even terms like JRPG were used to make them look inferior to "real rpgs" like Mass Effect). Ironic considering a japanese game literally created the new genre "Souls-like" on that very platform!
It's now a thing of the past luckily but remember how hard it was to even get most anime games outside of japan on ps3. Bamco alone released multiple japan only games every year for the entire generation, hell even Tales almost risked becoming a JP only series. Games like Tales, Yakuza, even Persona were not taken seriously and I hope you knew japanese of you were a fan of any Manga/Anime/Light Novel property outside of the big 3. While companies like NISA, Aksys, XSeed did pick up the slack and released multiple games even on ps3, but their releases were seen as even "less" than the usual. Even during E3 Sony ignored most JP games during their big presentations (unless you were SE)
There is no better way to understand the anime game situation than to look at the history of Gundam games. Most of them were jp only, but little by little some games started to appear at least in the us on Dreamcast and PS2. Dynasty Warriors Gundam got 4 games on PS3 and then... nothing. Occasionally some came out in the west, maybe digital only, but most were still JP only. Then we stopped getting Gundam games at all (thanks New Gundam Breaker!) and at most you could import asian versions of some Vita releases. Until Cross Rays released on Steam worldwide, and apparently saw some unexpected success because otherwise it's impossible to explain how something like SRW (SRPG like SD Gundam G Gen) also got a western release on Steam. And 4 years after NGB finally Battle Alliance released, the first Gundam game in 4 year time (and one of the few post DW Gundam) to actually get multiple western translations. But during that "dark age" too many games ended up being jp only and as games based on an external property it's unlikely they will ever see a modern rerelease
I'm willing to accept japanese games were having troubles on ps3, and later ps4. As I said shitting on them was very common, and Sony did everything to treat them like second class games unworthy of mentions. The damage was done. Lucklily anime fans did band together and put their money where their mouth is, which was Steam. Only someone who puts their head under the sand could pretend anime games aren't doing great on Steam (and are most likely the platform where most sales are). 5 years ago no one would have predicted Steam would have so many successful Visual Novels, RPGs, mecha games and who knows how many more historically snubbed genres. 5 years ago SRW in the west was a pipe dream. 5 years ago a Konosuba game would never be considered for a western release. 5 years ago no one would have expected a Type Moon visual novel to release in the west. Even something like SAO who got multiple games in the west during the last 8 years during the ps3/psp era would have never released in the west, and even less likely to get a 10 language translation. Even a game like SpyxAnya looks like something that would have been very difficult to see in the west despite SxF being a very popular seriers worldwide simply because of it's genre (and it being jp dub only)
Luckily the dark age of anime games are over for good
www.videogameschronicle.com
