Eurogamer Article On RPGMaker-Made Games

Traverse · 2018-09-10T15:18:11+0900

Eurogamer just did a numbers based analysis of how many RPGMaker-tagged games on Steam are actually considered "bad" (negative-scored reviews) by their reviewers. The answer is... apparently around 25%. Excluding a substantial number of games that didn't have enough reviews to count and those which were actually made in Wolf RPG Editor and not RPGMaker. One bit that made me laugh: Developer may spend hours customizing their works, but in the end the small details, like an options menu, will make the players realise it's an RPG Maker game. Click to expand... No, not at the spelling error. It's the fact that prior to MV, RPGMaker's stock menus didn't actually came with any options menus. Which makes me wonder how much of what he thought were RPGMaker's default options menus were, in fact, Yanfly's options menus. Anybody have any other thoughts?

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Started by Traverse Sep 10, 2018, 06:18 AM 12 posts View original ↗

Traverse

#1 Sep 10, 2018, 06:18 AM Source

Eurogamer just did a numbers based analysis of how many RPGMaker-tagged games on Steam are actually considered "bad" (negative-scored reviews) by their reviewers. The answer is... apparently around 25%. Excluding a substantial number of games that didn't have enough reviews to count and those which were actually made in Wolf RPG Editor and not RPGMaker.

One bit that made me laugh:

Developer may spend hours customizing their works, but in the end the small details, like an options menu, will make the players realise it's an RPG Maker game.
No, not at the spelling error. It's the fact that prior to MV, RPGMaker's stock menus didn't actually came with any options menus. Which makes me wonder how much of what he thought were RPGMaker's default options menus were, in fact, Yanfly's options menus.

Anybody have any other thoughts?
lordosthyvel

#2 Sep 10, 2018, 07:04 AM Source

I think what he calls the options menu is the default that appears when you press ESC. That menu has looked the same since rpg maker 2000 and few people bother changing it very much.
Traverse

#3 Sep 10, 2018, 07:47 AM Source

No, I don't think so. If you read the article, he mentions the other menus separately:

RPG Maker also provides you with many pre-made systems, like a save system, a battle system and default menus. These come in handy, but they are also a pain (or, in some versions, impossible) to modify.

Menus, plural, with an "s". This one he refers to as "an options menu" (singular) which he also calls a "small detail". If he meant the main menus it wouldn't be a small detail and he wouldn't single this one out as "options".
Dankovsky

#4 Sep 10, 2018, 08:08 AM Source

Thanks for the interesting article.

I don't think there's a convincing case to be made that RPG Maker games on Steam aren't bad.

As the author has said there are above 400 RPG Maker games on Steam. The fact that they don't all have "Negative" review scores doesn't mean much, because people who wouldn't enjoy those games likely wouldn't buy them at all and wouldn't write reviews for them.

If I'm being honest of those ~450 RPG Maker games there are at maximum 20 actually good ones (5%).

Funny thing is that this percentage is probably also true for most non-RPGMaker games on Steam too nowadays.

The truth is - we really need more great RPGMaker games on Steam. What's also funny is that most great RPGMaker games are freeware and only published outside of Steam.

P.S. "On average, an RPG Maker game receive 227 reviews" - well, that's hilarious. Currently the "average RPG Maker game" has 0 to 10 reviews.
JamesRyan

#5 Sep 10, 2018, 09:23 AM Source

One more thing is that "not quite a small number" of RPG Maker games on Steam is Ero games, and they don't really have a good design. The only purpose is to show players as many lewd pictures as possible when they play through the game, and i personally hate that.
gstv87

#6 Sep 10, 2018, 11:02 AM Source

RPGMaker is marketed as "the tool for amateurs to make games like professionals."
......well what did you expect would happen when an amateur tries to make a game like a professional without the knowledge required?

it doesn't go well for construction, medicine, electricity or mechanics, .... why would it be any different for games!?

(that's not a problem exclusive to RM tho.... Unreal, Unity, Source, and Java have the same problem: people who mash three files together, slap a price tag on it and call it a day, especially for mobile)
VisitorsFromDreams

#7 Sep 10, 2018, 11:39 AM Source

Interesting article, always good to see other people loving those art games more than the JRPGs like I do ha ha.
atoms

#8 Sep 10, 2018, 02:21 PM Source

I found that interesting, so thanks for sharing! :)

I have noticed there are also some RPG Maker games on Steam without the RPG Maker tag.
TakeHomeTheCup

#9 Sep 10, 2018, 10:33 PM Source

gstv87 said:
Java
Sorry, I think I'm misunderstanding or something, but how does Java do this? It's just a language.
gstv87

#10 Sep 11, 2018, 06:13 AM Source

TakeHomeTheCup said:
Sorry, I think I'm misunderstanding or something, but how does Java do this? It's just a language.
LWJGL
or something....

java-based package for creating games, used in minecraft
TheoAllen

#11 Sep 11, 2018, 08:24 AM Source

the RPG Maker tag has reached the point where it doesn't represent an engine, but rather a genre with defined expectations
This sums up me nowdays. I play RM games for different reason, and it doesn't always I want to play a game as pure enjoyment.
rue669

#12 Sep 18, 2018, 04:30 PM Source

Great article. Pretty informative. Some misguided representations but I think we should be grateful that someone in the video game journal sphere is talking positively about RPG Maker games and trying to do something about the stigma.

The comments for the article are also interesting. Didn’t read them all, but they’re insightful too.