RPG Maker Community Races to Save 15 Years of History Before Official Forum Shuts Down
AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer ·
RPG Maker community members are racing to archive 15 years of forum history and indie development resources before Gotcha Gotcha Games shuts down the platform in December 2026 without an official backup plan.
The official RPG Maker forums are facing an impending permanent closure on December 11, 2026, prompting community members to scramble and archive nearly a decade and a half of irreplaceable development resources. Originally reported by Connor Makar at Eurogamer, the shutdown was announced by administrator RPGMakerWeb as part of an upcoming shift in community management by developer Gotcha Gotcha Games. While a fresh forum platform is scheduled to launch, the developers currently have no plans to provide an official archive or backup of the existing boards, leaving the preservation work entirely in the hands of the players.
This loss threatens over 1.4 million messages, including critical troubleshooting guides, legacy engine support threads, and custom assets that have helped shape indie darlings like Lisa the Painful, Omori, and To the Moon. Dedicated community members are stepping up to organize massive preservation efforts before the clock runs out, but combing through hundreds of thousands of specialized threads is a massive undertaking. Although a six-month warning gives players some breathing room, the lack of an official legacy archive highlights a recurring frustration in modern digital spaces where platform migrations risk erasing deep community history.
Moving to a modernized platform makes technical sense for Gotcha Gotcha Games, but it comes at the cost of losing a digital museum of indie game development. Longtime users are currently sharing farewells while coordinating backup projects, hoping that either community-driven efforts succeed or the developers reverse course and provide a read-only archive. For an engine that acts as a foundational stepping stone for creative developers across PC and console, losing fifteen years of collective knowledge is a bitter pill to swallow.
Tags: RPG Maker, Indie Games, Game Development, PC Gaming, Community
Original article: Eurogamer