Creating a Paid RPG Maker MV Tutorial/Guide book

[hp4000]

I'd like to try writing an RPG Maker MV Tutorial/Guide book that would be for sale.

I've seen them for sale on Amazon, eBay, and other websites, so I wanted to know if you needed to get special permission to make one and what screenshots you can put in the book.

Thanks!

 

[Soulrender]

This idea will fail for one good reason, youtube contains tons of tutorials about RPG Maker MV and they are free. Anyway I don't think you need a permision for it

 

[Andar]

I wanted to know if you needed to get special permission to make one

yes, you'll need permission to use trademark "RPG-Maker" and then you need permission for screenshots from the game developer whose game is used for the screenshots (unless it's your own).

additionally, writing tutorials to a quality that they are publishable is NOT easy, and don't forget you have to pay someone to be your editor and proofreader.

Have you ever written even a small tutorial? if not then forget about the book and start posting small tutorials here on the forum first to learn your basics.

 

[Helladen]

You'd have to gather a bunch of tutorials from other RPG Maker people/use their knowledge to write a book. I don't think it is something the community needs.

 

[Switz]

I bought/used a Unreal Engine guidebook. Sometimes you just prefer the smell and feel of a hard copy to put you into serious mode instead of amateur running around not knowing precisely what you should be focusing on the most. My copy was for mapping, but it was poorly written and explained little in terms of step by step instructions. It only instead offered general/broad strategies like shading bottom corners of walls....seriously? How do you even shade lol?

So best advice is to step by step things. I would make a short 1-2 hour game and then in the book, step by step explain how to make said game.

Game needs to be good! Utilize everything at your disposal. The art will be the selling point because as someone said, anyone can go on youtube to learn how to get started. Your niche should be how to go from starring at RPG Maker store page to creating THIS INSANE THING THEY NEVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE.

 

[Grognard]

You probably also want to think about timing. RPG MV has been out for 3, 4 years now? If it takes you a year to put together a quality, financially viable tutorial book, a new iteration of RPG maker might be released/coming soon. It might be better to start planning a tutorial that you can adapt to a Maker program that is brand new.

 

[Starbird_Resources]

while there are lots of quality, free tutorials out there currently, i think there would be room in the market for a book that included highly detailed information about android deployment and how to set up game servers for MV. if you don't know how to do this/explain it, then you should find someone who can and hire them to handle that chapter. that alone would be worth paying for. but it requires a lot more than mere opinions on how to make a good game. in fact, i think a book that focused on the programming aspect, starting from beginner and going to maybe intermediate level, would be great as a more focused product. just my two cents.

 

[Kes]

MV Support is when you have a query about using the engine - a "How do I...?" or "What went wrong here?" sort of question. Your query has nothing to do with making an actual game.

[move]General Discussion[/move]
Taking my Mod hat off, and speaking personally, I would be very surprised if there was a market for this, as the number of free tutorials is huge. Alright, some of them are less than stellar in quality, but many of them are excellent. Unless you have considerable experience in using RM, and preferably have completed a couple of games at least, you are unlikely to have the in-depth knowledge needed to make a complete tutorial on every aspect of MV.

I think you also underestimate the amount of work involved. Take a look at Dreadshadow's tutorial on using the Event Command Menu, as an example. He had to go through every single Command and I know how long it took him to do, even though he had already done the same thing for VX Ace.

 

[hp4000]

Thank you for the input everyone!

The book is about 75% done, so it should be finished pretty soon.

Screenshots of the IDE just need to be captured and layed out, and then the title needs to be finalized.

The books that I've seen on eBay and Amazon have titles such as:

"RPG Maker for Teens"
"RPG Maker MV Basics"
"Beginning RPG Maker MV"

So I wanted to be clear on the use of the name "RPG Maker MV" in the title.

Also, for the notation inside the book, would I need to put something like:

"All trademarks are the property of their respective owners."

<OR>

"This book isn't affiliated with DEGICA or KADOKAWA CORPORATION. RPG Maker MV is a trademark of KADOKAWA CORPORATION."

Is there a proper notation that needs to be placed inside the book?

 

[Grognard]

I don't know copyright law very well, and it would depend on the jurisdiction.
That being said, if your sales will be in America, there shouldn't be any "magic formula" notation. As long as you make a reasonable effort to notify the readers of trademarks/copyrights, I think you should be protected. I would add contact information for Degica and Kadokawa corp. (address, website, maybe phone number - even if it's in Japan).

 

[Andar]

Is there a proper notation that needs to be placed inside the book?

As I said you need to ask Degica for that and you need to get a written licence to be allowed to publish a book using the trademarked "RPG Maker" title.
NO ONE here on the forum can give you that answer, you need to contact the company directly (preferably with more info and including a draft of what you want to publish). Use the support email for that.

 

[bgillisp]

Also just because you see other books doing it doesn't make it legal. It is possible they published the book without permission from Degica and Degica just doesn't know about it yet.

 

[Wavelength]

I feel very confident in saying that you can use the words "RPG Maker" or "RPG Maker MV" in your book's title. There are thousands of similar examples out there of product names being used in widely-distributed, professional guides, such as "eBay for Dummies" and "The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World". eBay and Disney did not grant special permission to use their names, but these titles were allowed to stand. Referring to something in a factual manner is not the same as using its Trademark.

You do, however, need to make it very clear that your guide is not an official product, has no official association with RPG Maker, and is not endorsed in any way by Degica or Kadokawa.

I believe that you can also use screenshots taken from the program, such as a screenshot of an Event Page, as long as those screenshots don't contain official artwork (like Characters). Fair Use as education/instruction should defend that, even in a commercial medium. I'm not sure about stuff like RTP tilesets (you might need to make your own for use in screenshots in the guide).

With all that said, I agree with many of the posters above who offer the advice that to write a worthy guidebook for a very versatile program like this, you need to have a lot of skills both in the subject matter (RPG Maker) and in technical writing. If you don't have at least a couple of years of experience as a nonfiction author or a career in technical writing, this may be an undertaking to leave for someone else.

 

[hp4000]

Thank you for the input everyone!

Before contacting support, I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing a thread that has all the information about this, so I am going to @ some other mods and staff members to get any information I may have missed about using the name "RPG Maker MV" in the book/title and using screenshots of the GUI inside the book:

@mlogan, @Archeia, @Sharm, @Touchfuzzy

 

[Andar]

@hp4000 mlogan and sharm are moderators, they don't know more about this.
and there is a reason why we tell you to contact support (which would probably get to touchfuzzy anyway): Some licensing information and contract details CANNOT be discussed in ANY PUBLIC area.

That has legal reasons and consequences, and to get an answer you are required to use a private method like a support email to Degica.
Any public answer has to be negative or the legal consequences would be larger as then anyone could take that answer to themselves, so a positive answer can only be received by private communication.

 

[Sharm]

That doesn't make any sense though. Half the people you mentioned are only moderators, we don't know anything that can't be found on the forum, we're volunteers too, we don't know everything about these forums either. The other half work for Degica, not Kadokawa. Degica doesn't own the name you want to use. If you want to ask someone a favor, you shouldn't go to their acquaintances, you should talk to the person you're asking a favor to.

Look, gonna be blunt here, if you don't understand enough about copyright and trademark law to not know that "All trademarks are the property of their respective owners." is a garbage line, you're going to get yourself into hot water over this book. You just don't know enough to know what pitfalls to avoid.

 

[hp4000]

Thank you for the input everyone!