RPG Makers are flooding Gaming Industry

[Abhilash]

(No Offence intended for RPG Maker and Steam Community)

I had conversation with my friend ,I told him that I am using RPG Maker for building a game  . He said something that made me worried.   Is he right? 

Are RPG Makers flooding the Gaming Industry with worthless games? 

He said by giving powers to common intellectual person who doesn't know programming + any other discipline for making a game (like Software designing) there is more chance of worthless games filling in the industry. It's like you're giving a sword to a baby.

Results:

1. Good Games are rarely seen in this flood of poorly developed games.

2. People need proof that your game is good by watching if custom content is present (I don't understand how custom content make a game good or bad rather than story and other basic key elements and skills).

3. Some sites are selling useless stuff to attract the game designer to their exit-less den.

4. Using custom content (mostly paid) increases game cost and customer suffers just for some perky content (not all cases, some content are good).

Topic Of Discussion

1. Do you agree with my friend? If yes, how much? and why?

2. Do you disagree? how much? Why?

Everything have its own pros and cons maybe Game Makers too... 

 

[DoubleX]

Off topic:

If your friend's right, then the community may have 1 more solid reason to run more events like the 2014 Indie Game Maker Contest(of course it costs really a lot to even run one)

P.S.: If I recall correctly, the winner of the 2014 IGMC uses lots of RTP stuffs.

 

[Warpmind]

Rebuttal, point for point:

1: Financially huge backing, large budgets and professional studios with big-name publishers are no guarantee for better games than can be made by amateurs with an affordable engine. Sturgeon's Law still applies, in that 90% of everything is crap. Also, taking Steam as a pertinent example here - RPG Maker games are nowhere near being the sole reason for good games to disappear in the flood, what with the recent flood of back catalogues being released as "New on Steam" the past couple of years. Yes, it can be hard to pick out the good games, but honestly, I don't think it's much harder than five or ten years ago.

2: An ignorant argument, at best. Custom content is merely a mild seasoning in the stew, as it were. By that reasoning in extremis, the finest chess computer in the world would be sloppy work if it didn't have painstakingly unique chess pieces. All custom content says is "we had a bit of time and budget to use an artist for exclusive graphics/sounds/stuff". Hardly a yardstick for quality on its own.

3: How, exactly, is the existence of scammers and swindlers an argument against an easily-accessible game engine?

4: How can this argument be reconciled with argument 2? If not having custom content is bad because it signals poor quality, and having custom content is bad because it signals a higher price, how does your friend propose to come out of his artificially constructed lose-lose paradox scenario?

In conclusion, the arguments above served against RPG Makers and the like are inconsistent, contradictory, and can justifiably be responded to by smacking the accusing party over the head with a moist (but clean) sock while countering the claims that don't trap them in a logical loop. (That'd be claim 1 and 3 in this case.)

 

[Tai_MT]

I disagree with your friend on a basic fundamental level.  That being that just because people have access to these programs, doesn't mean their games ever make it to market or even get published commercially.  In fact, there's far more mobile phone shovelware than there is RPG Maker shovelware.  That should be more worrying.

The simple fact is, most RPG Maker titles never really see a release.  All the program really does is give creative people without the college degrees or social networks a chance to try out game design.  If you're going to argue that programs like RPG Maker are going to put a lot of shovelware in the games market, then you may as well argue that pen and paper do the same thing to the writing industry...  Or Youtube does the same thing to the TV industry...  Or The Voice and American Idol do the same thing to the music industry.

Really, all the program does is give more people access to the industry.  It isn't necessarily bad or good.  It's just more freedom.

Plus, let's really be honest here...  It's not like the AAA industry or the gaming industry in general isn't pumping out massive amounts of really terrible and stupid games on its own anyway.  At least someone with RPG Maker has the ability to say, "I just have no experience or resources to make a game".  The regular game industry at large doesn't have that excuse, yet continues to pump drek out into the market on a daily basis anyway.

 

[Abhilash]

@Warpmind 

I am really impressed with your reasoning and intellect. Your views are outstanding (I like you command over English vocabulary + saying the right thing with right word.

Yeah 2 and 4 are lose-lose paradox. 3 rd one is the "paper in dustbin". 

I'm glad i'm winning 

@Tai_MT

 If you're going to argue that programs like RPG Maker are going to put a lot of shovelware in the games market, then you may as well argue that pen and paper do the same thing to the writing industry...  Or Youtube does the same thing to the TV industry...  Or The Voice and American Idol do the same thing to the music industry.

Really, all the program does is give more people access to the industry.  It isn't necessarily bad or good.  It's just more freedom.

Amazing lines. Describing my success. 

 

[juggernaut]

I would tend to agree. Using any of the RTP is a hobbyist approach. Engines cut out a lot of areas where game design would be learned through the trials you'd need to first pass to have a base for a game (Coding the systems). The truth about people is that they're both fickle and simple. If they aren't interested by the look of your game within the first few seconds, it's done. This is the same in advertisements, books, movies, you name it. 

More often than not you need originality or some other massive hook to accomplish any kind of acclaim. This doesn't apply to everything (See yearly AAA release titles) but everything else has one of the aforementioned hooks that keep people coming back. Beside the fact that the entire PC industry is oversaturated by 'indies', regardless of whether they were maker games or not

 

[Uncaring Cosmos]

It depends what the people making games with RPG Maker want to get out of it. There's a big difference between releasing a game for free, publishing a commercial game, and making a game to share with just your friends.

If you want to make a critically-acclaimed commercial game with RPG Maker, then it can certainly be done (e.g. 'To the Moon' or 'Actual Sunlight') but it's much harder to convince people to hand over money for a game using the standard RTP assets and the default RPG Maker gameplay mechanics. And, yes, that is partly because there are so many games (of varying quality) out there using these assets and mechanics.

But using custom assets doesn't necessarily mean having a huge budget (or, for that matter, any budget at all). There are plenty of awesome indie games with really "eccentric" art-styles, and people love them! If you can differentiate your RPG Maker game from others out there, then I don't think it can hurt.

 

[Warpmind]

@Warpmind 

I am really impressed with your reasoning and intellect. Your views are outstanding (I like you command over English vocabulary + saying the right thing with right word.

Yeah 2 and 4 are lose-lose paradox. 3 rd one is the "paper in dustbin". 

I'm glad i'm winning 

I try to please.

Well, more to the point, I try to contribute something at least moderately useful, when I bring something to the table. And deeply irrational arguments rather grind my gears, as they say.

 

[Blinn]

Tell your friend to come spend a month or two in the RPG Maker community and see if what he claims is sound.

 

[Matseb2611]

Just to add something. Your friend's main point is "by giving powers to common intellectual person who doesn't know programming + any other discipline for making a game (like Software designing) there is more chance of worthless games filling in the industry."

But what's there to guarantee that being a programmer would mean you'll make a good game? Being a programmer simply means you can make a game, but it doesn't necessarily mean a good one. All RPG Maker does is skip this step for the person to learn programming. Whether you know how to code or not, it is up to the developer to make a fun and enjoyable game with an interesting story and good mechanics. Knowing programming doesn't guarantee any of those skills exactly.

 

[Tsukihime]

Without numbers for proper comparison, it would be difficult to determine whether RPG Maker has, on average, generated more junk than other engines. Some engines are so convoluted that people don't even spend the time to try to figure out how to use it.


For people that make bad games with RPG Maker, I don't expect these same people to make anything good with Unity or any other game engine either. Harder engines may prevent them from even trying to enter the market because they would not be able to even make a game, so I would agree that ease of access lowers the barrier to entry. And as a result you will likely see more junk.


But this is not solely RPG Maker's fault. You should also look at things like the internet for enabling devs to push junk (or treasure) to millions of people easily. Or you might look at crowd-sourcing or things like greenlight for allowing them a chance to take the spotlight.


There are just as many other terrible games NOT created in RPG Maker when you take these into consideration, and ALL of the points your friend makes in those "results" section apply. For example, I do not judge games by what engine they're created in, but I do judge games based on their graphics. If you have terrible custom graphics, I would say you should've just gone with decent-looking stock assets. I'm not going to think "oh well he put in the effort so I'm going to be lenient".


Tools can allow you to make better games by giving you more functionality to work with without you having to figure out how to do it yourself, but someone that doesn't know how to use it wouldn't be able to do anything good with it anyways.


That can be seen as a good and bad thing. For those that just want pixel movement, they automatically have it without having to figure out how to implement it themselves. They won't be forced to figure out how to do it themselves, but as far as I'm concerned, if you want standard pixel movement in your game, it is not important whether you can code it yourself or not. This becomes a problem when you want something different and you don't know how to do it, or you don't actually understand what you could do with it because it's not properly documented or you just don't know how it works, but this is a separate issue and has nothing to do with ease-of-use = more bad games. It just means you need to work harder to get what you want.


In general, yes, if people without any skill or knowledge can try their hands at something, you will likely see a lot of bad things if they can freely publish their work. This is why some companies can produce a lot of good things: if everyone was able to publish their work under the company's brand, then there will probably be a lot of bad things as well regardless whether the company actually made it or not.

 

[Abhilash]

@ juggernautYeah bro, Most people judge books by its cover. This is the bitter truth.

@Uncaring Cosmos
I know every game is not meant for commercial release and also it is difficult to convince people with just RTP stuff.

But using custom assets doesn't necessarily mean having a huge budget (or, for that matter, any budget at all). There are plenty of awesome indie games with really "eccentric" art-styles, and people love them! If you can differentiate your RPG Maker game from others out there, then I don't think it can hurt.

Great point there.

Tell your friend to come spend a month or two in the RPG Maker community and see if what he claims is sound.

Yeah, I'll.

But what's there to guarantee that being a programmer would mean you'll make a good game? Being a programmer simply means you can make a game, but it doesn't necessarily mean a good one. 

Actually there is nothing which have guarantee. Does EULA guarantees no privacy (or no reverse-engineering). But it reduces its probability.Similarly programming + any other discipline for making a game (like Software designing) increases the probability of resulting into good game.  By the way nice point there

 For those that just want pixel movement, they automatically have it without having to figure out how to implement it themselves. They won't be forced to figure out how to do it themselves, but as far as I'm concerned, if you want standard pixel movement in your game, it is not important whether you can code it yourself or not. This becomes a problem when you want something different and you don't know how to do it, or you don't actually understand what you could do with it because it's not properly documented or you just don't know how it works, but this is a separate issue and has nothing to do with ease-of-use = more bad games. It just means you need to work harder to get what you want.

 I agree and I am impressed.  

 

[Bex]

Yes the Quickest Dudes make the Money^^ Even with Crap Games.

Take Flappy Bird for example^^ classical Trollgame, but he was the first on Android with that.

Yes i know i prefer quality Games or atleast Fun Games, myself.

 

[SpiralSigil]

I'll admit I skipped over nearly everyone else's comments on this one (And they're all very likely good, well thought-out points) If only to include my two cents on the topic itself;

Namely that even IF RPG Maker games are flooding the market with bad games (And yes, some are bad, but for the most part those are learning experiences that make us better creators in the future, or one-offs that we never speak of again (And I totally replay as a guilty pleasure)) That's kind of a nil point until the professionally made games as a whole pull their collective heads out of their collective butts and get their own acts together first.  The last generation (at least) of games made by fully staffed and professional studios have been (With few exceptions) abyssmal compared to the past years/generations/whatevers that many of us (I assume) grew up with.  As a community, or as individuals tinkering away with RPG Maker, or any other indie-development program, its true we dont always turn out mind boggling-good products, or even ones that your average joe would shell out $2 for, but honestly?  That's really small potatoes when the big names out there, the ones that I'd like to assume used to inspire alot of us to even TRY making our first game (Personally I like to fondly recall Final Fantasy before it was a festering pile...) have oversaturated gaming as a whole with title after title of overhyped dribble.  

Now, yes, I'm a retro-gamer.  I'm one of those 20-something old farts that likes to complain that games were much better in my day (And they were!) Before everything became about graphics-graphics-graphics.  And its true, some developers actually try to produce good games nowdays (I'm a die hard Tales of Fan, and the Persona series always leaves me speechless with how rich the story and characters are) But even not counting just RPGs there's countless games coming out nearly every week that make even our dismal, starting maps look like art - because at least, for so many of us, we're still trying.  We improve little by little and learn from our mistakes and criticisms.  That's alot more then I've seen from professional developers in the last...  Geez, I don't even know *how* long.

So if your friend is right, and RM games are just becoming a dime a dozen, and stifiling to sift through to find the few good games?  Well, so be it.  I'd rather play a hundred games by indie developers learning the steps then shell out $60 for something designed by a professional team that barely looks like it's been tested (Or that insults my intelligence by not even letting me PLAY it) 

/End Rant

 

[Foron]

(No Offence intended for RPG Maker and Steam Community)

I had conversation with my friend ,I told him that I am using RPG Maker for building a game  . He said something that made me worried.   Is he right? 

Are RPG Makers flooding the Gaming Industry with worthless games? 

He said by giving powers to common intellectual person who doesn't know programming + any other discipline for making a game (like Software designing) there is more chance of worthless games filling in the industry. It's like you're giving a sword to a baby.

Results:

1. Good Games are rarely seen in this flood of poorly developed games.

2. People need proof that your game is good by watching if custom content is present (I don't understand how custom content make a game good or bad rather than story and other basic key elements and skills).

3. Some sites are selling useless stuff to attract the game designer to their exit-less den.

4. Using custom content (mostly paid) increases game cost and customer suffers just for some perky content (not all cases, some content are good).

Topic Of Discussion

1. Do you agree with my friend? If yes, how much? and why?

2. Do you disagree? how much? Why?

Everything have its own pros and cons maybe Game Makers too... 

I agree AND disagree.

Giving the common people access to game development is definitely risky.

But, your friend seems entirely wrong. I don't see rows and rows of RPG Maker games, and no one seems to mention anything like that.

 

[Foron]

Tell your friend to come spend a month or two in the RPG Maker community and see if what he claims is sound. 

I can tell it will be great. 

 

[Dragnfly]

Yeah, I skipped most of the other replies. *shrug*

(No Offence intended for RPG Maker and Steam Community)

1. Good Games are rarely seen in this flood of poorly developed games.

2. People need proof that your game is good by watching if custom content is present (I don't understand how custom content make a game good or bad rather than story and other basic key elements and skills).

3. Some sites are selling useless stuff to attract the game designer to their exit-less den.

4. Using custom content (mostly paid) increases game cost and customer suffers just for some perky content (not all cases, some content are good).

1) While I will say your friend is pretty much wrong I fully understand how he got some of these opinions. I had them too, and still do in some cases. I do believe RM is causing a flood of crap due to it's ease-of-use. I've played several RM games that were on people's "best" lists that I felt were utter crap and was better off never existing, that they got a development white-card just because they were independently made. Indie is NOT an excuse to churn out crap. Indie development needs to work extra-hard to show that it can make more enjoyable games with $100 than Capeabamco can with $100,000,000. But the mobile game market is certainly far, far worse and the console/PC markets can't make a functional game to save their lives. Really, it's just a hard time for gaming. To narrow it down, following Street Fighter 2's success there was a massive flood of fighting games which were 90% barely functional garbage. For every Samurai Shodown there were 50 horrible ones. This is just something that happens in industries. With the success of superheroes I'm amazed the comic industry hasn't been overrun with terrible superheroes. Well, maybe it has I don't really follow it.

2) There's plenty of topics on here where people say they refuse to play a game that uses default content. So it does happen. There's just as many graphic humpers in the mainstream industry too. For me it all depends on how it's used. Sure the default stuff can get boring but if you jive it up with some creative editing and placement it'll be fine. I used to play text adventures though so I might have a tougher skin than most of the kids nowadays.

3) I.... don't really understand what's being said here. Sorry.

4) Hmmm. 2 and 4 seem kind of at odds here. Does he want it pretty or not? Custom Content increasing cost sounds true enough to me. You're either buying the content, or spending time you could be making money with to instead work for money for your custom content (or making it yourself, which still costs). But I don't see how the customer is suffering beyond when he may download a pretty game and be hit by terrible writing or bugs. Again, something that happens in every industry.

So in short, yes I believe RM games are 99% crap with a teeny tiny handful of gems. And I've been playing loads of them lately. It's a free creation tool so the vast amount of people just aren't willing to put in the effort. The same goes for novels (likely the biggest offender) and music and anything else humans can create. Sun Quan (well, not that Sun Quan) felt the only way to stem the tide of crap is to let only the privileged few who'd passed special training have access to creative resources, and that turned out to not work either.

 

[Foron]

2. People need proof that your game is good by watching if custom content is present (I don't understand how custom content make a game good or bad rather than story and other basic key elements and skills).

I think it's because people think it was all made by the developer (or their team), which makes them think: "Oh cool, some effort!" Because they think that they "made" (as in maybe they did, maybe it was a royalty-free track) it, leading them to think they also worked hard in coding the actual game.

 

[Dragnfly]

Thanks for pointing that out. That was Abhilash who said that. For some reason my quote box when I was quoting him broke (I likely hit backspace too much. Fixing it now.