The first otome game is generally considered Angelique, and was released in 1994.

There is a rather big franchise called Ouran High School Host Club, which started in 2002, which is a parody on the otome genre and assumes that the audience be familiar with it, as it mocks it's clichés.

There is absolutely nothing new or newsworthy about the existence of otome games and some of the comments in this thread really make me aware of how every news article appears accurate, safe for the one about the subject one happens to be somewhat knowledgable in oneself.

It makes me realize that most likely I have also been making such comments from other news articles, not realizing how much the article was sensationalized dreck news that attempted to arouse a false impression.