On the problem of pirated games. I admit that I do have an illegal copy of PCB from this website I downloaded long before the DMCA (I think 2 years ago), and that was my first taste of bullet hell games. Given that experience, I am feeling quite hesitant to actually buy any of the games, fearing they might just end up on a shelf, without me touching them. In a way, I think it actually saved me from doing an expense I may have not enjoyed in the long run (this does not mean I will not try come back to it one day...).
Anyway, the idea is that when I buy a game (which is very rare), I want to make sure of two things: 1) I will enjoy the game and 2) have the replay-ability and feeling I want to get back to it (not just get bored once I finished it, if I can finish the game of course), therefore feeling the money was well spent. In the case of official Touhou games, I have not felt that yet. I suck at bullet hell, and my experience with one fan-game (albeit with clunky controls for keyboard) proved that it is doubtful I would enjoy both fighter games and side-scroller platform games as well. And at almost 13 Euro for each of the games here in Romania, it is still an expense I need to consider before actually taking it.
And to not call myself a complete pest towards ZUN, I have to say one thing: I HAVE BOUGHT THE FULL FORBIDDEN SCROLLERY SERIES. I have initially bought Volume 3 as a gimmick, thinking I could give the series a shot. And after I finished reading it, I actually ended up loving the series as I bought more and more volumes. Just less than 3 week ago, I have become the proud owner of the full series in printed, paperback format. In total, I have spent about 469 RON (Romanian currency) on all 7 volumes, or roughly the equivalent of 100 US dollars. So now am I am still a pest for the fandom given I am associated with this place? Maybe. But at least I know (or at least hope so) that I managed to support ZUN by buying some official product I ended up enjoying a lot.
Now time to go back robbing ZUN and the fan circles who compose music or fan games by watching some quality content on YouTube
The community here is way healthier than the ones of people that complain about us, but for them we're the villains of the history because we did pirate some games, like, i never saw fights or bunches of l0li henta1 here the same way i saw in the other fandoms, they're absolutely worse, the only difference is that they got some cash in their wallets
Oh don't worry, nobody in this fandom will ever question the issue of needless community drama, the great rift between the JP (pretty much its own thing) and overall global Touhou communities, the fact that despite a niche fandom, we are still very divided, loli hentai and all the disgusting stuff because we all know how the
Touhou Fans be Like
As a new touhou fan, i have to say, thanks to this site i had the chance to play amazing games, not only the Windows but also the PC-98 ones, and i doubt those reddit idiots would pay a lot of money for a old PC-98 and spend other lots of money into PC-98 disks
I have already talked about the PC-98 DMCA issue in the other thread of this kind, together with very much the source material for all the debacle. And before that, I think it might have been Tenkko who was the first one to notice and write a thread on the same issue back in spring.