Simple question. Why do you make RPG Maker games? Honesty counts!

I have two reasons. First is the fame, I'll admit it. Why do you think I talk so much about my games all the time? I want people down the road to talk and appreciate what I've made. I don't know if I'll ever get that, but that's instinctively what I shoot for.

The second reason is because I want to do something creative. Something that will still be around after I'm not. So someone could say, "Hey, this guy was pretty good!". The two go nearly hand in hand, I think.

Please, share your thoughts.

It's about the only creative outlet I feel I have any talent in anymore. I used to skateboard a good deal, but I haven't been to the park in years. And I may be horrible at writing, but as far as working with and around RM1's limitations gives me a good sense of satisfaction.

The only other reason could be that somewhere in me, I feel like even with the lack of graphics and such, I can make something better than the garbage being put out on consoles today. I feel games really have been falling in the past decade. Though I, in no way, think I'm actually going to DO better job than triple A titles... it's kind of hard to explain really.

I wouldn't ever do it for fame, though... because I'd feel I'd be doing it for the wrong reason. I do it because I like to. The second it becomes about numbers of downloads and ratings, I think I'd start falling out of enjoying the creation proccess.

I used to love to BASIC program on the Commodore 64 back in my high school days. I also used to play text-graphic adventure games like The Guild of Thieves and The Pawn. It was always my dream to make adventure games like that. Then I played Resident Evil 2 and fell in love with survival horror. I had the desire to make games like these always linger in the back of my mind. I heard of RPGM1 and decided to try to do something with it. I was surprised to see attacks done via point deduction instead of with the swing of a weapon. I had never played a turn-based RPG. I bought Shadow Hearts to get familiar with turn-based RPGS and loved it and it would turn out that TBRPGs would become my second favorite genre to survival horror. I kept up with RPGM2 (and loved it) but it had too large a learning curve. I then got RPGM3 was at first dissapointed and then realized how easy it is to use and make adventure/horror games. So that is why I use it the most. As I became more and more interested in philosophy over the years, RPGMs (particularly 3) seemed like a good way to creatively express philosophical ideas. Everything started to come together: my interests in programming, my interest in early adventure games, my interest in survival horror, my interest in turn-based RPGS, and my intersts in philosophy. Everytime I pick up RPGM3 I feel like I have new ways of tapping into my mind and explore ideas from my early childhood to present day. It also is an outlet to create things that I don't see out there in professional games. So many professional games tease you with things that they could have done but chose not to either by design or constraint. At any rate I feel like I can in a sense complete for myself whatever is lacking.

Because nobody else was using my ideas.

Truth - I bought a copy of RPG Maker 3 on a complete whim, thinking that maybe it would enable me to finally make that huge fantasy saga that I'd been designing (on and off) for about 10 years. Easier than learning real programming.

Truth - Got started with it, was kind of--no, not kind of--was overwhelmed by the scope of a huge fantasy saga, decided "I'd better start out with something smaller. Yeah, I'll just make a small game and see if it works." Did that, with the gameplay I had wanted for the huge fantasy saga, and a farce of a story in the best tradition of "Spaceballs".

Truth - Decided I didn't really want to make that huge fantasy saga after all. It had started out as an idea for a game and somehow over the years morphed into an overblown story. I don't like mixing my gaming and story stuff. Wait, why did I make the story-driven thing mentioned above? Umm...

Truth - Didn't really know what I was doing. That's why I made the story-driven thing. And I thought having a story was just expected... you know, so that people would actually play my game.

Truth - Started working on a sequel to the first game. Realized I'd already used up my best ideas in the first one. That was after I had already created two lush fields for it.

Truth - Didn't want my fields to go to waste. Canceled the sequel thing, added another lush field, added more stuff, and did a new game, this time a more gameplay-driven thing so that I could enjoy my gameplay similar to the first game but without having to play the first game and slog through all of its story-driven nonsense that I can barely stand.

its a fun creative outlit for me. i havent been able to write a decent story in a few years so this is the best way for me to express my ideas.

i enjoy a challenge, and rpg maker1 meets this requirement, being one of the few programs that is limited in what it can do and flexible in the way you can break the software. i like playing with it and finding new ways to do what i want it to do.

every writer wants to get their story out, and i want this story to be told.