RPG Maker users could lose years of important history as official forums shut down

For decades, RPG Maker has been essential software for many game developers, leading to the creation of fan-favorites like Omori, Lisa, Yume Nikki, Fear and Hunger, Corpse Party, and many more. Unfortunately, it looks like one of the platform’s largest repositories of information is being deleted — by its own studio no less.

Earlier this week, Gotcha Gotcha Games Inc. announced it will shut down RPG Maker’s existing official forums, with the more recently created RPG Maker Guild website taking its place. To be specific, the current forums will be deleted wholesale, including its archives, removing a massive repository of information that many developers rely on to build their games. The forums are already being wound down, with Gotcha Gotcha Games having disabled new account registrations. On June 18, posting and other features will be disabled as the site becomes read-only. The old forum and all its archives will be deleted on Dec. 11.

As could be expected, RPG Maker developers are furious, and the official post announcing the news is filled with incredulous comments and pleas for the studio to reconsider. Those familiar with computer programming or game development know that a huge chunk of the development process involves using search engines, forums, and existing tutorials to work through problems. With the current forums being not just wound down, but deleted outright, many of those searches will now lead to dead ends. On top of this, the RPG Maker forum hosts download pages for many plug-ins (prebuilt modules that are borderline essential for creating complex games). When the forum goes down, many of these will likely disappear as well.

As a result of the announcement, many RPG Maker users are scrambling to archive as much of the forums as they can. Another point of contention is that RPG Maker Guild, the site replacing the old forum, has been described as poorly implemented due to a lack of features and bad UI.

The move comes a few years after Gotcha Gotcha Games parted ways with its old publisher, Komodo, so that it could distribute RPG Maker itself. This decision may come down to the fact that Komodo still runs the site’s old forum, while Gotcha Gotcha Games handles the new one. Although it’s hard to imagine a more self-destructive move than deleting such a massive hub of knowledge, at least at the moment, the company seems to be following through on its decision.