So, quick question. When did selling RPG Maker games become a thing? I remember playing like 50 of them 10 years ago, they were popping up for free on the internet like mushrooms. They're still popping up for free all these years later, but every so often I run into on on Steam people want money for. It baffles me.
Also, I wish I could get into that old hard drive, I'd like to see that old stuff again.
Well, the thing about that is that there are loads of very well done, incredible RPG Maker games out there for free because of the game's community. Tons of people make amazing content, scripts to completely change how the game works, etc, but many of these creations come with the stipulation "You can use these in your games as much as you want, AS LONG as you don't sell your game commercially". This means there are lot of deep, well made free RPG Maker games with amazing content, BECAUSE they're free.
Then you have a company like Ardorlea who just churns games out as fast as they can, throw together cheesy, badly designed swill, just to make a quick buck, and honestly (as someone who's used RPG Maker since it was a PSX game), it's

ing disgusting. Games like that are the reason a lot of people think "Ew, RPG Maker game for sale" too.
It's all well and good to sell an RPG Maker game, because it's just a game engine, but the problem lies with games like those. It also definitely lies with the fact that a LOT of people don't bother to use anything but the graphics/sprites/portraits that come packed with the software, so many RPG Maker games LOOK the same, even down to the characters. That's not a good thing.
All that said, there are some excellently crafted RPG Maker games, both free and not free (like To The Moon, though I haven't tried it yet), as well as awful games on both sides of the pond.