No no,I was primarily talking about their writing in the creative sense(though yes,I do agree they dont seem to employ an editor).
Ori being very well executed(both narratively and gamedesign wise)and the Sakura titles being what exactly?
A 1$ gas station hot dog?
Really,outside of completely boiling it down to the concept of "indie" they have nothing in common(and I say that as someone who absolutely didnt care about Ori).
Anyway,main point being even on the western market there are so many better alternatives(even if you restrict it to the slice-of-life moege that Winged Cloud keeps pulling most of the time)and there have been long before the series´s inception.
I understand why it did well in the beginning,being one of the first big VN(if you even want to categorize it as that)releases on Steam but how the hell do they keep afloat these days?
One would assume even the unwashed masses would get tired of the same schlock again and again.
Hell,even on Steam there are better alternatives.
I have no ill will towards Winged Cloud(at last I dont remember them pulling any shit)but man,I seriously wonder how they keep going.
Kinda want to know their sales and budget numbers now.
as you said, i think most of their success is due to being ones of the first popular VN on Steam
I wouldn't call their games "big-VN", as there already were somes pretty-good VNs, and i remember the first actual-hentai game being a yuri-game about a ghost or something
But Sakura-Fantasy was definitely ones of the first really popular-one in the west
And i think of it's success can also be attributed to two other-things:
-First, it's softcore, theses guys mostly make softcore-hentai/ecchi so it's just lewd-enough to lure the degenerates into buying their games, but it's just not-hardcore enough to avoid getting labelled as pure hentai
that's what i call the "no, i don't watch hentai, only ecchi, my two favorites animes are To-Love-Ru and KissXSis btw"
-Second: even while they mainly do pretty generic monster-girls stuff, their artstyle is unique, it's pure lewd-moe
and it's clear they like to draw lewd, but they clearly don't like to draw sex
you can tell because whenever they draw girl fully-nude, it look like they've never saw a pussy in their life