"This Is Why Preservation Matters" - 14 Years Of RPG Maker Community Content Is About To Be Erased

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/06/this-is-why-preservation-matters-14-years-of-rpg-maker-community-content-is-about-to-be-erased

203 points · 10 comments · view on lemmy.world

10 Comments

Zarxrax@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 74d (2 replies)

Well, they aren't closing the forum until the end of the year, so that's plenty of time for people to scrape it.

WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 35 pts · 74d (1 reply)

The issue is making it accessible for people new to it to be able to find.

cheesorist@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 74d

while they could keep it up as an archive, theyre a company after all. giving a 6 month notice beforehand is a nice thing these days, i can probably scrape the site to some degree, index it, and serve it with a basic file server, and im not that skilled compared to other people in these regards

so if the community is dedicated, i bet they will probably spin up an archival project

i am not saying this to give the company a pass, i am saying it for people who fear it will be hard to archive

KssioAug@lemmy.zip · 27 pts · 74d

Maybe I'm missing something, but to be fair I don't think it's right and safe to assume that a forum will be working forever.

I think it's good that they've announced it beforehand, instead of just making a sudden change and send everyone the middle finger (THAT would be a shit practice).

People should make a backup of the projects now and snapshot everything. I'm sure there are scripts that enable it with relatively low effort.

Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 74d

That's no good. Time to back up some of the resources I might need. Thanks for the heads-up!

LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 74d

Wayback Machine archive - you're welcome.

NaoPb@eviltoast.org · 7 pts · 74d (1 reply)

First RM2K.net, now this. What a shame. I hope people can manage to preserve stuff. Sadly I'm out of storage atm.

thingsiplay@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 74d

Just in case you are not aware, there is at least a backup of the files from RM2K net. But sadly lot of metadata and description from the webpage is not preserved: https://rmn.rmarchiv.de/ and https://archive.org/details/rpgmaker-net-game-archive

GraniteM@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 73d

Isn't this basically what Archive of Our Own was founded for? They may focus on fan fiction, but it seems like one could start a conversation with the Organization for Transformative Works to add another wing for this sort of content.

Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com · 1 pts · 68d

Maybe they can be imported to the Fediverse