CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Someone already started talking about this, but I thought about bringing it from a different point of view, and perhaps start an analysis. Just as I woke up in the morning, and I am very much confused of the two bombshells that just dropped in the Touhou community last night. I am not sure if it is actually two of them, or just one but somehow connected it was too late in the night to actually contribute in discussions, so all I could do was spectate in the morning the two problems are the following:
1. A DMCA sent by unknown source (claimed by some to be ZUN himself, quite likely not him unless he wants to put some moves), that ended up in platforms outside Steam removing their downloadable copies of the Touhou games https://twitter.com/hazama_yuutou/status/1508198367007965184?t=ltQMtnO2TCk4JpIcTANtbg&s=19
From what I could see on other platforms, the discussions seem to go in the direction that the DMCA thing has been something good (“nobody is entitled to get things for free”), and that any source providing pirated versions of the game should be punished. Discord groups agreed with the measure, Reddit enforced the idea pirating is a big no-no, and Twitter cheered the strike on all sources of pirated games. It is a fair, that one should buy the games, and therefore help the creator (since ZUN is a one man army basically). However, the first 5 games (PC-98 era) are basically a relic that is not compatible with modern computers unless using Virtual Machine, and the games from 6 to 9 can only be found legally in CD form. The latter can create quite a hassle, despite all the tutorials and extremely useful info put forwards by the wiki and people who want to help. After all, I honestly find it a bit difficult going through all the hustle of buying a game from Japan, pay a large sum of money for it (especially when making the conversion to local currency), wait for it to be delivered, hope it will be delivered to Eastern Europe and pay more on the delivery than on the product itself. Plus, I personally tend to be very doubtful when buying something expensive, especially in the case I will not enjoy it – did I just spend a lot of money for something I ended up not enjoying?
To quote on an idea someone came up with in trying to explain what happened or who to blame for the (first) incident of the night:
So... Touhou 6-9 for Steam soon?
2. A little controversy started over on Twitter from alleged editing of the wiki https://www.reddit.com/r/touhou/comments/tq24bp/on_the_recent_touhou_wiki_drama_a_nuanced_analysis/ (before the thread gets nuked) that made it to social media.
Opinions are normally very mixed in the fandom about ships. Personally, I never really cared about people shipping characters, but I cannot deny that from time to time I might enjoy a piece of fan art of that kind. I know about the implications of yuri and what people usually make out of it, especially in the way of altering character personalities (which I have seen a lot here in the Touhou fandom), but again, I feel too indifferent on the problem for it to actually bother me anymore. However, I guess Twitter is gonna be Twitter, and people will always get angry out of the most stupid of reasons.
Anyway, I hope things will calm down soon, and this will be just another one of those stupid drama that seem to be going on (again) like in the past half a year.
1. A DMCA sent by unknown source (claimed by some to be ZUN himself, quite likely not him unless he wants to put some moves), that ended up in platforms outside Steam removing their downloadable copies of the Touhou games https://twitter.com/hazama_yuutou/status/1508198367007965184?t=ltQMtnO2TCk4JpIcTANtbg&s=19
From what I could see on other platforms, the discussions seem to go in the direction that the DMCA thing has been something good (“nobody is entitled to get things for free”), and that any source providing pirated versions of the game should be punished. Discord groups agreed with the measure, Reddit enforced the idea pirating is a big no-no, and Twitter cheered the strike on all sources of pirated games. It is a fair, that one should buy the games, and therefore help the creator (since ZUN is a one man army basically). However, the first 5 games (PC-98 era) are basically a relic that is not compatible with modern computers unless using Virtual Machine, and the games from 6 to 9 can only be found legally in CD form. The latter can create quite a hassle, despite all the tutorials and extremely useful info put forwards by the wiki and people who want to help. After all, I honestly find it a bit difficult going through all the hustle of buying a game from Japan, pay a large sum of money for it (especially when making the conversion to local currency), wait for it to be delivered, hope it will be delivered to Eastern Europe and pay more on the delivery than on the product itself. Plus, I personally tend to be very doubtful when buying something expensive, especially in the case I will not enjoy it – did I just spend a lot of money for something I ended up not enjoying?
To quote on an idea someone came up with in trying to explain what happened or who to blame for the (first) incident of the night:
So here are my theories on who might've done the DMCA, from most likely to least likely:
1. Oyamada-san, who is ZUN's legal representative/legal team more or less. He's done DMCA takedowns before.
2. Mediascape. This is the company that publishes ZUN's games on Steam, so another likely candidate.
3. CAVE/GoodSmile/NextNinja/UnknownX/Aquastyle: Grouping these three together, since all three hold the Touhou license currently, with CAVE holding the license for a (supposedly cancelled) Touhou mobile game, and GoodSmile/NextNinja being the parent company/developer of Touhou LostWord. UnknownX and Aquastyle also have the Touhou license with DanKagu. With the latter, there was a rumor I read a while ago that they did take down PC-98 links though.
4. A DMCA troll. The least likely, but still plausible candidate.
So... Touhou 6-9 for Steam soon?
2. A little controversy started over on Twitter from alleged editing of the wiki https://www.reddit.com/r/touhou/comments/tq24bp/on_the_recent_touhou_wiki_drama_a_nuanced_analysis/ (before the thread gets nuked) that made it to social media.
Opinions are normally very mixed in the fandom about ships. Personally, I never really cared about people shipping characters, but I cannot deny that from time to time I might enjoy a piece of fan art of that kind. I know about the implications of yuri and what people usually make out of it, especially in the way of altering character personalities (which I have seen a lot here in the Touhou fandom), but again, I feel too indifferent on the problem for it to actually bother me anymore. However, I guess Twitter is gonna be Twitter, and people will always get angry out of the most stupid of reasons.
Anyway, I hope things will calm down soon, and this will be just another one of those stupid drama that seem to be going on (again) like in the past half a year.