Just a couple of days ago, Gotcha Gotcha Games, the studio behind RPG Maker, revealed plans to permanently close the RPG Maker Forums as it shifts focus to its newly introduced online hub, RPG MAKER GUILD. New sign-ups have already been halted, and the forums will transition to a read-only format starting June 18, with the site’s complete shutdown set for December 11. Furthermore, all user data and forum posts from the legacy RPG Maker site will be wiped clean and will not migrate to the new platform.
The RPG Maker series owes much of its success to the vibrant community that thrives on shared knowledge, with the RPG Maker Forums serving as a repository for nearly 15 years of valuable insights, homemade assets, and plugins. It’s no surprise, then, that users expressed dissatisfaction with the decision to erase the website entirely without proper preservation.
In response to the community’s concerns, Gotcha Gotcha Games updated its stance on June 12, stating that it would revise its earlier policy. The company announced that both the Japanese and English sections of the RPG Maker Forums will be archived in the coming days. According to a recent post on X, the team is actively refining the archiving process for community assets.
While the specifics of the archiving method remain unclear, the RPG Maker team has pledged to provide further details as soon as they become available.
Initially, Gotcha Gotcha Games acknowledged the potential harm of permanently losing access to community-generated content. However, the studio also noted that archiving the forums posed significant copyright challenges, as each post and asset is owned by its original creator. Reposting or transferring this content could lead to copyright violations.
Nonetheless, the developers are exploring ways to archive historical assets while respecting copyright laws.
Related articles: