Out of curiosity: how did RPG maker become popular?

[Green Cat]

Wolf RPG, that as far as I'm aware is completely free, is rarely used. Yet tons of people use RPG maker despite tons if limitation, expensive price, expensive dlc, and if I'm not wrong, you also need to give them some of the profit if game sells.

This is what i mean, i don't understand how one became more popular. Or was it one of thoes things where the publisher pushed money around, called sponsor and not bribe, so they advertise this series until everyone got used to it and where like: well, i know rpg maker, let me pay a fortune to own this instead of using the free one.

Anyways, end if monologue that i hope makes it clear to anyone, why i ask (out of curiosity) how comes one got so popular, despite price and limitation, while the other is ignored (no clue by how many since i don't have any statistics for reference)

[Liam]

I can't comment too much on the other stuff since a lot of it will come down to personal preference and the like, but

'you also need to give them some of the profit if game sells'

isn't true, at least. You're free to sell things you make on RPG Maker commercially without paying any fees or royalties to the RPG Maker developers. (Not counting the initial purchase of the software of course!)

Also, from what I understand, the English version of Wolf RPG Editor is quite outdated and was maintained by a third party, right? Otherwise if you want to use the latest and up to date Wolf RPG you have the extra obstacle of Japanese to go through which might not make it as popular over here. Which I'm sure contributes to what people may choose when developing, along with general comfort with the toolset and general layout of events, etc. if they've been using RPG Maker since the 2000 days like I have, haha.

And of course, given how long RPG Maker has been around, there's a wealth of support for it if you get stuck on any one thing you're trying to figure out. The same might not be as true for Wolf RPG given its predominantly Japanese, unless you search with that in mind.

I think RPG Maker was just around at the right place and right time to grab the right audience, with a prominent presence on Steam and up to date english documentation and toolsets, whereas Wolf RPG could be seen as a bit more niche over here given the language barrier and more hurdles you may need to clear to use it.

Edit: Adding onto my post in regards to RPG Maker being a paid product, and Wolf Editor being free--how much in the way of assets does Wolf RPG come with out of the box? Does it have an 'RTP' equivalent, or is it lightweight on assets with the assumption users will supply their own? I ask since I genuinely don't know, and maybe it does have a hefty equivalent.

Because one of the biggest appeals of RPG Maker I think for a lot of newcomers will be that the engines come with a lot of resources straight out of the box, in the way of enemy art, character sprites, tilesets, music, sound effects, etc. all which you have the rights to use in your game that you sell commercially. Which, given the cost of getting those assets custom made otherwise can be seen as part of the value of RPG Maker, and you're allowed to use those assets across different RPG Maker engines interchangeably. So while it does come with a hefty price tag at first glance, the assets you're provided are pretty nice. (Of course if you're not making a game with RTP then the value shifts, but for a lot of casual users of the engine, I think they get a lot of use.)

[Dadalama]

Piracy was good advertising back in the day. You also get used to an engine so if it's what you started with (because it was the first of the Japanese RPG creation programs to get translated), you tend to not want to learn anything else. Like being a GURPS gm in a sea of D&D folks. I only heard of Wolf rpg maker from a nitrorad video a long time ago.
You know OHRRPGCE is still around? That was the first one I used. Interesting little engine.

[Deejrandom]

Having a really active community helps. I don't know any other RPG focused engine that is talked about as much and has as much support as this product. It also was built over time, with many of us starting out on the 'free' translated version back in 'the day.' That helped create a community before the official paid version came out.

The community is the key, imho.

[Parsnip]

Don Miguel

[Sladus]

I've never known of any of the RPG Makers to be royalty free.