What "Niche Game" means exactly?

I sometimes hear people talking about niche games. What does this mean more precisely? What is a niche game like? Examples? English is not my native language, so maybe that's why I don't understand the correct meaning of word "niche" when talking about games. According to Google Translate, it means "gap in the market". So does that mean that niche games are difficult to sell?

Typically something that appeals to a relatively smaller audience.

If you look at a genre like fighting games for example, many would consider Melty Blood to be niche. It has a strong core following, but lacks the mainstream appeal of series like Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Smash, etc.

Then zooming out from that, many would consider the fighting game genre to be niche itself.

It's all relative, but in general just means something is significantly less popular than others in its category.

@ConanTheStoner: Thanks, that cleared things up a lot

Has already been mentioned above but yeah. Niche indicates a catering for a minor audience that doesn't reach mass appeal financially.

For example First Person Shooters, Open World Adventure, ARPGs are all mass appeal. A lot of people want these games, they're pumped out due to supply n' demand, selling tens of millions for an average or above product (plenty of big ones sell ten to one hundred million copies). Many find recent games of popular genres shallow because they are heavily developed to rake in the mula and less focused on quality. Resulting in a few shallow games.

Fighting games, Survival Horror, Racing games are examples of niche market. Majority of niche games would be thrilled to even hit 500K sales let alone, a cold mill. Some games clash against this ruling but it's only for long-running/ established franchises (Mario Kart). However niche games are usually considered a 'passion project' and are developed because the people coding the games believe in the quality of what they're aiming to achieve. Whether they had the team or resources to pull it off however varies from project to project.

Not that it should matter if you enjoy popular games or niche. But you will have less to chat & play with in niche genres/ games.

Personally don't care if what I played was popular or not, a good game is a good game. Bad game is bad. Sales only truly matter if you're invested financially to a game, they are not a sign whether a game is good or bad.

@RSM-HQ:

Yeah, like when Arcsys posted an excited update that GG Strive had crossed 500k units sold, saw a lot of gamers confused about it.

Success comes in all sizes, but seems many think of 5 mill as a "good start" haha.

Great example. 500K is probably sweet for Guilty Gear and the developer staff at Arc Systems. I haven't played a GG game since Rev 2, but it was a very fun time. Arc Systems has been cranking great quality Fighters for a long time now.

Success comes in all sizes, but seems many think of 5 mill as a "good start" haha.

If a game can't sell more units than Tetris why bother; I'mma right_

"Niche" connotation (as opposed to the dictionary definition of "Gap in the market") generally means specialized, particular, or of low appeal, though not necessarily from a lack of quality.

Niche games to me would be many independent games, games like realistic flight simulators, and even some genres that were more popular at one point, such as real-time strategy games.

Genre sometimes doesn't really matter, though. Call of Duty is a modern FPS multiplayer shooter, but is not niche; Squad is also a modern FPS multiplayer shooter, but is niche. The difference is the former made choices during development to appeal to a broader base, while the latter made choices to appeal to a specific, more niche, target audience.

You speak (or write, rather) English very well for it not being your native language, btw!

@naxho89y:

A good example of niche game is Metroid. It has a smaller following than other Nintendo IP's and so the sales numbers are typically smaller.