I will probably get downvoted to hell for this, but in my opinion, yes, you are not a “real programmer“ if you use scripting languages or visual scripting to create software.

My reason for saying that is that you are essentially using a tool in its boundaries and won‘t be able to extend it further. This does not mean that the work you are doing is bad or that the results you get are inferior to using another software, it just means that you are limiting yourself to a single setup to create software. This is not programming. Trust me, I know what I am saying, one of my first “programs“ was a geographical learning tool created in powerpoint as a presentation. Today I wouldn‘t even consider this an application, but at that time, it was awesome. And the same thing applies to game engines and scripting languages. I used blitz basic as a kid and created small games in it. By my standards today, this wouldn‘t be even in my scope of consideration. Getting an image to render on the screen were just a few lines of code, while today I write shaders and create OpenGL VBOs for sprites.

What I am trying to say is: There is always a time for using certain software at a given point (heck, I used excel as a level editor for a commercially sold game, because it just worked). Everybody has a comfort zone and if you can create games that you enjoy with construct or rpg maker, go ahead and use these tools. I won‘t blame you for that, but to get back to the point: What most developers have is what could be called a “freedom bias“ where your degree of freedom ranks you in the superiorness of development. It could be described like this: Construct < Game Maker < Unity < Unreal Engine < Inhouse Engine developed only for you. The more freedom you have in how you can work with your tool, the more superior you feel. That‘s why people say construct is bad or game maker is bad, while they themselves use Unity. The Unreal Engine users say “why use Unity, you do not even have access to the source code“ and get laughed about by the developers that wrote their own single purpose game engine, like Naughty Dog (which won‘t probably laugh, because they don’t care, but you get the concept) did for their PS4 exclusive titles.

To end this with my personal statement: I write C++ and C# and I like the latter more than the former, but from what I can see, most people who work with Unity do not qualify as programmers in my eyes, because they use the language as a scripting tool and as I stated above: People writing in scripting languages are not “real programmers.“ Fortunately, C# has more abilities than GML in Game Maker which makes it superior to it, but inferior to C++, because having access to Unity’s source code means that you can change the boundaries of your application, while when using C# you are trapped within the current state of the engine.

I hope this clears up, why people react this way to tools. I wouldn‘t consider Construct to be a fully fledged game engine either, but as I said, I used power point to create software, so who am I to blame you.

Also, someone wrote something about amateurs that brag about engines and belittle those who are not in their “freedom rank“ (see above). This usually not the case in a professional environment (except maybe, when you use an IDE with a light color scheme /s). Let me compare it to race cars: Those who are fans of or amateur race car drivers will brag about the cars they have and how yours sucks, but have you ever seen professional race car drivers tell each other how shitty their cars are? I don‘t think so.

And some last words: Do what you like and work with whatever you want to work. The results are what counts, not the tools you used to create it.