RODEN'S PROFILE

I could respond in more detail, but since you'd dismiss it there's no need. Just know that commercial devs care just as much about their work and artistry as any hobby dev, and that acting like some games are "important enough to RM culture" to break the "rules" is a gross old guard viewpoint that isn't helping anyone.

You gotta submit that to your gamepage so it can be Picture of the Moment.

Absolutely fantastic.

Dyhalto
See, that's exactly the problem. When did it become RMN's role to be an umbilical cord for aspiring gamedevs, and why do you want to transform it into such?

In case you weren't aware, this is a development centric community. Everybody here that makes games is an "aspiring gamedev" no matter what degree of success they hope to reach. What other fucking job does the site have besides supporting those goals and providing grounds for discussion with other developers?

What else should it be? Somewhere for people to come and piss their ideas and work away into an abyss?

Dyhalto
So with that said, what fanciful service does RMN provide to commercial gamedevs by giving them the Featured Game slot?
30 days of free advertising. That's it. That's all.

30 days of free advertising for your RM game on the front page of a popular RM community seems like a pretty big deal to me. I'd love to get 30 days of huge advertising space on this site. Besides, it's not like Badluck, EnHouse Studios, harmonic or any indie dev at all is rolling in money as soon as they sell their game. Support and advertising make a difference.

Dyhalto
Meanwhile, what does that do to the hobby community? It gives them the realization that they have to compete with money now. No matter how one spins their words or tries to argue for "worthy of community recognition" or other such jingoism, the reality is that demos for games purchasable on Steam will get center stage from time to time, and that leaves a bigger impression on a greater number of people than anything you, me, or anybody else in this thread will ever discuss.

This is a shitty argument considering the hobby community already competes with money, in the form of AAA games and indie games outside of our own sphere.

Yeah, sure, harmonic, Nessiah and whoever else promoted their stuff elsewhere like smart developers would. I'd gather a lot of the reason behind it was that RMN doesn't provide support for it, because people are scared of all these imaginary bad things that will "obsolete the site" or "ruin the hobby scene" or whatever.

NeverSilent
You don't see anything weird about putting up a big banner on the frontpage that's essentially saying "Hey, try out this awesome game! It's one of the best our site has to offer! Oh, but you'll have to go to Steam and pay for it first. No, this is totally not an advertisement."?.

The Featured Game spot is the largest, most visible thing on the front page and the first thing which appears in that slot's rotation. It's always been an advertisement- even a free game can be advertised. I don't understand this sentiment. The front page is almost entirely advertisements of the community, that's the entire point of it.

Dyhalto
I'm with NeverSilent. Featuring a commercial game is basically advertising on it's behalf, and for what? There won't be a monetary kickback, as would be appropriate for that sort of thing. RMN will get absolutely no benefit from it.

For what? For supporting a developer who made a game worthy of community recognition and wants to sell their game to support themselves and their future game making ambitions.

Acting like we shouldn't do it because RMN doesn't get money from it is really selfish considering RMN is the one at fault for not having a store system- nobody wants to develop the site any more or work on such a thing. It's not the developer's fault that they can't sell their game here and directly support the site. I'm sure many of them would, were it possible, since most of them got their start here and still hang around in the various channels of the community.

Solitayre
i understand this viewpoint and it is more or less the viewpoint that this website has espoused. This was originally a site for free games and a lot of people have been leery about letting commercial games encroach on our territory. But times have changed. Commercial RPG Makers are viable now. Creators like Reives and harmonic have been making them for some time, and some of the most iconic known RPG Maker games are commercial now. I think it is on us to adapt to the changing market.

^

The site making itself obsolete is more of a problem if we sit here and refuse to acknowledge the ability to create and sell great RM Games, honestly. I mean, there's no way for me to get the numbers on it, but I'd wager that at least 85-95% of the games here are free to play. I don't see some huge anti-hobbyist shift happening anytime in the future, since RM is such an easy to learn system.

I would agree that commercially available games on the site should be required to offer demo versions. IMO commercial games RM or not should offer demos. Sucks that most don't.

NeverSilent
Hm, I'm a little sceptical about that. Featuring a game that can't actually be downloaded unless you pay money (on a different site, even) just doesn't feel right to me. We should definitely have a special spot to recognise and promote notable commercial games, but maybe not the Featured Game slot.

Not featuring commercial games feels a little weird and out of touch nowadays. If anything, we should be trying to help respectable commercial RM games reach a wider audience, since it'll improve the reputation of the engine as a development tool.

Besides, putting another section on the main page would only clutter it even more- it's already a nightmare with all that information hidden all over the place.