Finally Free from the Corrupt RPGMakerWeb Forums

This separation is well-deserved, and I am incredibly grateful that Gotcha Gotcha Games finally cut ties with this toxic environment. RPGMakerWeb was never managed by the core Japanese developers. Instead, it was run by Komodo (formerly Degica), who allowed a corrupt modding mafia to permanently damage the English RPG Maker community.

The forum and the official Discord server became infested by VisuStella (Yanfly) and their associates, including moderators like TouchFuzzy and Archeia. They used their power to protect VisuStella’s commercial interests, spread propaganda, and aggressively censor the community. If anyone criticized VisuStella’s code obfuscation, documented their severe plugin performance issues, or corrected their false statements, they were instantly silenced. Their favorite tactic was sending goons to derail threads with flame wars, giving biased moderators an excuse to shut down legitimate technical discussions and hide criticism.

Despite being a private commercial circle, VisuStella used their insider connections at Degica to get early access to new RPG Maker builds. This gave them an unfair headstart to monopolize the launch of RPG Maker MZ, deliberately locking out independent creators. Anyone who stood in their way was harassed or banned, driving away legendary, established free modders. This toxic monopoly shattered the open, collaborative spirit of the community, pushing countless talented game developers and plugin creators to abandon the engine entirely.

Thank you, Gotcha Gotcha Games, for investigating the community’s warnings, stripping publishing control away from Komodo, and completely dissociating from that corrupt forum. VisuStella and their enablers chose short-term profit over the health of the community, causing insurmountable damage. This official split was long overdue, and it is a massive relief to see the real developers finally take a stand for the community’s future.

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今回の決別(パブリッシング権の移行)は当然の結果であり、Gotcha Gotcha Gamesがようやくあの有害な環境との関係を断ち切ってくれたことに、心から感謝しています。RPGMakerWebは、日本のコア開発元が直接管理していたわけではありません。代わりにKomodo(旧Degica)が運営していましたが、彼らは一部の腐敗したツクール系モッダーの「マフィア」を野放しにし、英語圏のツクールコミュニティに決定的なダメージを与えました。

フォーラムや公式Discordサーバーは、VisuStella(Yanfly)とその関係者、そしてTouchFuzzyやArcheiaといったモデレーターたちに占拠されていました。彼らはその権力を悪用してVisuStellaの商業的利益を守り、プロパガンダを広め、コミュニティに対して猛烈な検閲を行いました。もし誰かがVisuStellaのコード難読化を批判したり、彼らのプラグインが引き起こす深刻なパフォーマンス低下をデータで証明したり、虚偽の主張を訂正しようとすれば、即座に黙らせられました。彼らのお気に入りの手口は、サクラを送り込んでスレッドを荒らし(炎上させ)、偏向したモデレーターが「荒らし対策」を口実に正当な技術的議論や批判スレッドを強制閉鎖することでした。

VisuStellaは単なる民間の商業サークルであるにもかかわらず、Degica内の身内コネを利用してツクールの新作ビルドに早期アクセスしていました。これにより彼らは不当なアドバンテージを得て、「RPGツクールMZ」の発売と同時にプラグイン市場を独占し、他のインディー製作者を意図的に締め出しました。彼らの邪魔をする者は嫌がらせを受けたり出禁にされたりしたため、実績のある伝説的なフリーモッダーたちもコミュニティを去っていきました。この有害な独占状態は、コミュニティのオープンで協力的な精神を粉々に砕き、無数の才能あるゲーム開発者やプラグイン制作者をツクールというエンジンそのものから完全に離れさせる結果となりました。

コミュニティからの警告を調査し、Komodoからパブリッシング権を剥奪し、あの腐敗したフォーラムから完全に決別してくれたGotcha Gotcha Gamesには感謝しかありません。VisuStellaとその協力者たちは、コミュニティの健全性よりも目先の短期的な利益を選び、計り知れない損害を与えました。今回の公式な決別はずっと待ち望まれていたことであり、本家の開発元がようやくコミュニティの未来のために立ち上がってくれたことに、大いに安堵しています。

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Dang… someone just laid it all out. :rofl:

:clap::clap::clap:

Succinctly put. And agreed on every thing.

Thank you, Gotcha Gotcha Games, for investigating the community’s warnings, stripping publishing control away from Komodo, and completely dissociating from that corrupt forum.

This, yes. (╥﹏╥) Thank. You.

(Being someone who reported to GGG years ago, with evidence of few of the shenanigans of the people running the old English Forum. I didn’t realize that with this, they finally came through & done it. :folding_hand_fan: Must have been a tough decision, something I suspect the old forum-owners were leveraging, feeling too secure in their position to not care & continue with their biased & corrupt activities. So it’s something to be grateful for that Gotcha Gotcha Games were able to pull through here. :sparkles: )

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I totally agree with you! Same thing happened to me too. I’m glad I’m allowed to post here. Been part of the RPG Maker Community since the mid 90’s. This is nuts!

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Thank you for your contribution to cleaning house. VisuStella really tried to monopolize the RPG Maker modding scene so they could maximize mod sales and stifle other modders, harassing anyone questioning their methods and weighing down on other modders who were not controlled by them.

I am glad to see them fail. But unfortunately, I think the damage to the RPG Maker English modding scene and community was already done.

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Most of what @baba05 has laid out in the opening post isn’t true at all.

I can’t speak for the Discord server, but the forum was in no way “infested” by VisuStella – I’m someone who hasn’t used a single VisuStella plugin and only one or two small Yanfly plugins, and no-one looked down on me for that. I didn’t go out of my way to state my stance on them, but I didn’t make a secret of it either, and I’m sure I’ve criticized them at least a few times.

  • I never saw anyone “silenced” for criticizing VisuStella.
  • I never saw Yanfly and their team members derailing threads with flame wars.
  • I never saw anyone banned or even harassed for “standing in VisuStella’s way”.
  • I never got the slightest sense that VisuStella had a monopoly on anything.
  • I never saw any “legendary” free modders driven away by VisuStella. (Note: I do know of one modder who was driven away, Aesica, but from what I understand, that wasn’t related to VisuStella at all.)

I can’t comment on whether or not VisuStella got early access to new RPGMaker builds, but… why is it a bad thing if they did, exactly? Lots of people get early access to builds of lots of software products. It’s called “beta testing”.

In short: your post is total nonsense.

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If it did not affect you, it does not mean it did not affect others.

One example on Discord was Yanfly making accusations about other modders stealing his code to justify the obfuscation of mod code for Visustella. Some better-known modders stepped in to prove it was false, as the accused code was just a generic coding, but they were harassed and eventually banned.

Anyone confronting Yanfly or VisuStella on Discord or the RPG Maker forum got banned, or their posts were removed and locked. You were not allowed to criticize or even mention them.

Multiple posts analysing performance showing that VisuStella’s heavy obfuscation wrappers were causing lag, frame drops, or memory bloat in MZ games were censored. Because several VisuStella team members double as administrators or moderators on the official forums, these threads were systematically locked, derailed, or scrubbed. Developers who pushed the issue too hard found themselves banned or heavily suppressed. That is a fact.

No mention of criticism towards Visustella was allowed as Archeia (forum mod) was a friend and probably part of VisuStella.

Archeia and TouchFuzzy was running defense for Visustella and responded to anyone criticizing anything toward them in a very unprofessional way.

“”“I never got the slightest sense that VisuStella had a monopoly on anything.”“” = They were the only modders given access to early MZ builds just so they could be the first to build a modding ecosystem with obfuscated modding while others were left behind. It was unfair and unprofessional. They gaslighted other modders, and they were given preferential treatment just because they had friends inside Degica.

“”““I never saw any “legendary” free modders driven away by VisuStella””“”" They literally harassed the FOSSIL creator and made him quit. He was working on a project that allowed users to easily port and use MV mods on the MZ engine, but Yanfly and VisuStella were not happy because they wanted a monopoly and wanted people buying their mods for the MZ engine instead. If FOSSIL succeeded, then people would have more options to use free mods made in MV, and that made VisuStella and Yanfly unhappy. It was beneficial for the community, but not for the profit-driven VisuStella team.
Yanfly himself wrote he will take him to court
QUOTE> “It’d be faster to just take things to court and let the lawyers have a good laugh.” He also was contacting all RPGM communities to ban him completely cutting off Restart’s lines of communication with the community.

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Then explain how I managed to get away with criticizing them.

I definitely remember posts that discussed the performance downsides of VisuStella’s obfuscation. I don’t recall those posts being removed, though the thread might’ve been locked eventually… but not until a whole bunch of people had commented, including (if I recall correctly) Yanfly themself.

I can’t comment on this, as I have no knowledge of why the FOSSIL creator left; but I can say that FOSSIL itself was never censored or anything. It’s still up on the forums and you can download it whenever you want. It wouldn’t make sense for them to harrass him until he quits, only to leave his stuff up for everyone to see.

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Locked for 5(i) in the English ToS (“Harassment, slander, threats”) and 4(i) in the Japanese, which is about defamation against other users or third parties.