I'd say they used to be unpopular in the west, but that's changed. See https://itch.io/games/genre-visual-novel https://itch.io/games/genre-visual-novel for a s

I'd say they used to be unpopular in the west, but that's changed. See https://itch.io/games/genre-visual-novel https://itch.io/games/genre-visual-novel for a sampling of games that are mostly made in the west, as well as Russia and Southeast Asia.