About a decade ago, there was basically no such thing as "English visual novels", much less the notion that they could make money and even become successful. Now, thankfully, it seems every year we step closer and closer to becoming much more recognizable rather than the tiny niche we started from, and I also can't wait to see the field grow.
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A bit over a decade ago there was Sprung (Ubisoft, 2004), which was intended to be a "western dating sim." It was a huge commercial failure, but it did at least get some people interested in the genre who otherwise wouldn't have been.
This was, incidentally, the first commercial game I worked on, so while I have very mixed feelings about it as a game, it holds a soft spot in my heart.