RPGMaker.net to close down in a month

http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/8024/

I don't know that community but the post announcing the site's closure on April 2 is quite bitter. The pity will be for the many games hosted there - undoubtedly some will find new homes but the loss of such an index (there are also some games that are not RP Gs and are not made with RPG Maker) will be bad.

This will also mean problems for some notable RPGM games listed here... time to look for other sources.

I once thought of making a game with that. I guess that it will never happen now. Ignore.

edited 4th Mar '11 2:29:25 AM by nuclearneo577

Hmm, never heard of that site but I don't really have sympathy for 'bitter community suck, I quit' posts even if community truly is sucky. I mean, this world wouldn't work if all leader people would just ragequit when things don't work.

^ What he said.

Oh my, I got the news from an external site and I should have checked their homepage, with another post:

http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/8035/

I'll check better later, but apparently the old admin has decided to retake control and reverse the closure.

^ Agreed as well. More than the old admin's decision to quit, I dislike that "everything will sink with me" attitude.

Agreed too, the French TI68k community suffered a lot of this too.

edited 4th Mar '11 3:09:46 AM by Medinoc

I'm surprised they didn't close down sooner, RPGM and RPGM 2 K are reallly legal (they're translated Japanese commercial programs). I still had fun with them back in the day, though.

But yeah, bitter communities are never any fun.

Everyone I know with RPGM downloaded theirs from torrents or .rars on Megaupload/rapidshare.

Well yeah, I mean I know you couldn't get it from the site, I'm just saying that communities involved with pirated software are usually targets to be shut down even if they aren't distributing anything. And in fact this site was distributing RPGM games which is illegal because although the EULA allows distribution of the RPGM games you make, it's for registered users only and virtually NO ONE who used the English version actually registered it.

I ran RMXP.net/.org, one of the biggest RPG Maker sites around, for years. Not only did more people legally purchase the program than you think, but Enterbrain doesn't give a damn about English pirates. I have reported sites directly hosting the RPG Maker cracks, and they haven't ever done a thing about it.

edited 4th Mar '11 6:27:00 AM by ccoa

If what you say is true, I stand corrected and eat my hat.

I think that if it wasn't for the unofficial translations of the earlier versions, Enterbrain would have never, ever considered giving RPG Maker an official translation. Such large communities and thounsands of projects weren't born thanks to their earlier efforts - no, it was thanks to fans who made the tools available to a Western audience. I'd strike against who distributes cracks, but for the rest I understand the lax attitude of Enterbrain.

There's also a loophole for the early versions of the program. If you downloaded the English translation of RPG Maker 95/2000/2003 before the "Sad Fact" press release, you aren't doing anything illegal by using it. They specifically allowed it in that case. It's only if you downloaded it after that that it's piracy.

Probably because it was that translation that made an English market for the RPG Maker series, as already said.

edited 4th Mar '11 8:22:45 AM by ccoa

...I think I'm missing something. I know they host RPGM games there, obviously, but have they never heard of, you know, IndieDB, ModDB, Gamebanana or other sites? Even if they lost this site, as WIP said, they could just find others (though, one of the other staff guys said that the closure would be canceled, rendering that point kinda moot).

Are there legal issues involved with putting this on other sites or what?