Well, first of all these are not for casual gamers, who are like 70% of the market.
First of all, most people don't have the time, patience or the fascination with the topic itself. A casual gamer will go out and play something like "Devil may cry 5" or "GTA5" etc. Maybe 1 out of 20 will play any historical themed game and maybe 1 out of 20 of those historical players will play a simulator.
And that's just the men. Female gamers will be even less likely to play those.
I'm a strategy (turn based grand operational strategy, no rts "strcraft-y" stuff please) gamer first and foremost. I'm in a way a ww2 pacific buff, so I do enjoy SH4 a lot - don't get me worng. But even I get somewhat tired/annoyed with the long "go back from the east china sea to midway" patrol returns when nothing ever happens.
Let's face it, these can be very time consuming games where nothing is happening for long periods of time befoe you finally get to chase down some target (and even then chances are that its an unarmed merchant that wouldn't satisfy a "challenge-oriented" twich gamer).
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