To see Slacker’s developed sets on RA, click here, or you can follow him on YouTube or via the Brainfreezerrr Studios YT channel here.
Mirrored at the sole discretion of clymax for sake of transparency on Retro Achievements, which was one of the aims of Moderator BahamutVoid in leaving his farewell letter not long after Administrator televandalist’s own resignation letter dropped. If you have any concerns with this mirror, please reach out to clymax directly.
On September 14th 2025 I stepped down as a dev because I learned the hard way that no matter what you do for people, the moment you’re no longer convenient to them they will throw you aside like a used condom.
Since leaving though I’ve been told I’m welcome back as a dev when I decide to return by some admins and mods I will not name but I know better. Getting booted off a side server the same way I got booted off rollout crew is all the proof I needed of how unwelcome I truly am.
At this point I don’t even have the energy to be angry. I just want people to stop hurting me. At most I wanted people to question the trust they have in RA’s leadership but the whole Clover situation has taken that to an extreme I never wanted. The house is divided and I’m not welcome back on either side.
Some people are optimistic that RA will get past this but I’m not so sure. There’s no faith in leadership anymore. People are dropping like flies and knowing how the people who run the site truly view the people they work with: disposable and replaceable, things are going to get much much worse before it gets better. IF it gets better. The RA i knew and loved is dead. All the Clover situation did was make that clear to everyone else.
Oh and i still don’t know exactly what I could have leaked to get kicked off rollout crew to begin with but I don’t think I’m ever going to get an honest answer on that. For all I know one of the admins was having a bad day and decided to take it out on me.
I have no ill will towards anybody but that doesn’t mean my trust in people hasn’t been damaged. I’ve told the admins/mods mentioned before I’m just going to stick to being a player from now on as I just want to be left alone at this point. You could say I left at a good time but the way I see it, my departure was just the dam cracking. Clover was just the moment the dam burst.
In the farewell letter I now regret writing due to how many bridges I burned with it, I said that I hoped we hadn’t forgotten that players having fun is the real reason we do what we do. I think we did indeed forget that part. Welcome to the Dark Age of RetroAchievements.
For clymax‘s projects, click here. You can also follow him on YouTube.
All Discord roles were removed with no communication or warning.
Is this retaliation for aiding the call for transparency by raising awareness of the Pokémon Clover incident on Retro Achievements? You decide.
Would you like such treatment after contributing nearly three thousand achievements across over forty games?
PSA: Your developed achievements are no longer your own but belong to the site, according to their Developer Code of Conduct here.
Achievement Ownership
When you publish your work you are giving it over to the community to be reviewed and reworked over time….
Is even Roblox less predatory in comparison, despite the abysmal 24.5% cut for Roblox developers? Retro Achievements pays nothing, yet you also keep none of your work. On a typical romhacking website, your work stays your own.
Retro Achievements: Apply to Be a Junior Developer Today!
2. Double Standards: Bending the Knee to Big Studios Like Nintendo While Giving the Middle Finger to Hack Authors
The following section is not directly addressed to Wes, tele, or suspect15, as each of them have been kind enough to take the effort to discuss potential solutions to the issue raised in this section. Neither is the following section directly addressed to any singular individual on Retro Achievements but to the organization as a whole.
Retro Achievements goes to great lengths to prevent the illegal act of game roms being shared on any of their platforms.
Where can I find ROMs?
Not here. It is illegal to host or distribute copyrighted ROMs.
At the same time, Retro Achievements has no qualms about engaging in the allegedly illegal act of mass copying and hosting romhack patches without obtaining hack author permission or notification.
If true as alleged, this not only violates the IP rights of hack authors but robs the hack author of download counts, forum members, user reviews, user engagement, and Discord members, just to name a few examples.
In doing so, Retro Achievements also positions itself to benefit from increased membership and user engagement by making itself the one-stop shop for playing your favorite romhacks and getting achievements for doing so.
Robbing hack authors of what in many cases is their only tangible reward for their hard work can discourage the hacks from being further developed, due to lack of user engagement, and so players also suffer.
In this way, Retro Achievements does not hesitate to throw fellow modders in the retro gaming community under the bus, as long as RA stands to benefit.
Depicted: example patch downloads for the Andaron Saga mod of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (GBA) by Mangs and Team. As of this writing, this mod is only available from an potentially adjacent Discord server to Andaron Saga. This means RA users, unlike other players, won’t need to join that Andaron Saga Discord to play this mod. But does RA have permission to host this patch?
And as if the blanket “fire now, ask questions later” approach wasn’t bad enough, Retro Achievements has not provided an off-ramp for hack authors to opt out of having their patches cloned or to take down these cloned patches, despite requests for them to do so.
Romhacking sites typically honor a hack author’s request to take down a romhack patch.
Ironically, even rom-sharing websites, which won’t be named here as they are illegal, honor such requests albeit to take down pre-patched roms rather than romhack patches.
The following section is not directly addressed to any singular individual on Retro Achievements but to the organization as a whole.
Admin Announcement via RA Discord, April 25, 2025
In light of recent events, the admin team has decided not to allow sets for paid hacks of copyrighted content. We have long striven to avoid any involvement of money in what we do beyond paying server costs, and we don’t believe the risk opened by encouraging unauthorized monetary gains based on a third party’s IP is worth the gain. We still support and encourage paid homebrew, which showcases the creativity and capability of skilled developers without invoking these concerns. Free hacks will of course continue to be supported as well. This is purely about preventing liability.
To be clear, this does not affect any sets at this time, it simply sets up policy for when it becomes relevant.
Interesting timing. Could these be the paid hacks in question?
In case of doubt:
The admin announcement can be seen as implying that the paid hacks are illegal or at least unethical.
This virtue signaling by Retro Achievements led to misguided backlash by the player base.
But I am no stranger to getting this kind of backlash from other gaming communities.1
Respectfully, however, the romhack patches are legally sold.
The patch contents are 100% my work and are hence copyrighted by yours truly.
The legally obtained romhack patch can only be used by a player in conjunction with a legally obtained game rom.
But am I just in it for the money?
Or am I spearheading an effort to legitimize paid romhacks? So hack authors who come after me can be rewarded for their hard work and face less backlash than I did? So players can enjoy hacks of greater quality and variety?
Those who have spoken to me may have an idea.
In this case, no one from Retro Achievements even tried to reach out to me.
Meanwhile, what do we have here? It’s the GBA Script Port to Final Fantasy V (SFC) by J121.
Mods like this have been banned, for being illegal, elsewhere in the modding scene.
Let’s set aside the issue of obtaining permission from the hack author, which was already covered in the previous section.
In the case of the GBA Script Port, the patch file still contains verbatim the entire script of game story and dialogue from Final Fantasy V Advance (GBA).
This script is a copyrighted work of Square Enix and cannot be legally distributed by Retro Achievements without a license to do so. Has Retro Achievements acquired such a license?
So, Retro Achievements, why all the hypocrisy?
4. Appendix
Appendix on sample backlash from another gaming community (not Retro Achievements) regarding the Whirlwind Fiesta event for Final Fantasy V (SFC): ↩︎
To see Tayadaoc’s developed sets on RA, click here.
Mirrored at the sole discretion of clymax for sake of transparency on Retro Achievements, which was one of the aims of Moderator BahamutVoid in leaving his farewell letter not long after Administrator televandalist’s own resignation letter dropped. If you have any concerns with this mirror, please reach out to clymax directly.
[Editor’s note: Clovergate is not specifically named, so is the timing of her departure merely coincidental? It is up to the reader to decide.]
Click here for the English version via Google Translate
Une petite lionne cherchait un hack banjo kazooie. Elle pensait l’avoir trouvé, mais le site sur lequel elle venait de s’inscrire ne proposait aucun lien. Après 2 jours, elle décida de tenter l’aventure. Elle commença à gagner des badges, et à participer à des events également. On lui mit en tête qu’elle était assez créative pour devenir dev, et elle fut promue dès son premier set.
Elle fit de son mieux pour ne pas se noyer dans cet immense océan.
Lorsqu’elle apprit qu’il manquait un joueur à la team fr, elle les rejoignit. Ensemble, ils honorèrent la mémoire de Simba en se plaçant au top.
Tout allait pour le mieux.
Malheureusement, la destruction s’abattit sur le site.
Une bande de monstres sans cœur commençait à vandaliser le site. Leurs décisions changeaient en fonction de leur humeur. Ils tuèrent même l’un des achi en mémoire de ce pauvre Simba.
Le harcèlement était évident. Un set disparaissait au bout de quelques heures à peine.
Le site avait maintenant moins d’intérêt qu’un idle game.
Après avoir lutté des années pour ne pas couler, elle était enfin devenue une bonne dev, capable de repérer une erreur dans son code assez rapidement. Ironiquement, c’est ce moment qu’ils choisirent de lui retirer ce statut. Aucune explication. Aucune raison. Aucune justification possible, car elle respectait toutes les règles. Mais que peut-on faire contre l’abus de pouvoir ?
A ce site qui fut ma maison pendant 4 ans et demi, je dis au revoir. Je pleure ta disparition qui est maintenant inéluctable. A tous mes amis, camarades de jeu, compagnons de dev, je vous souhaite une bonne continuation. Faites ce que vous aimez faire sans vous soucier de ce que pensent les autres. Seul votre avis est important.
A mes persécuteurs : puissiez-vous comprendre un jour ce que sont l’amour et la compassion.
Et à tout le monde en général : il n’est jamais trop tard pour bien faire.
“Voilà, c’est fini” ou “Libérée, délivrée”, choisissez.
To see Tayadaoc’s developed sets on RA, click here.
Mirrored at the sole discretion of clymax for sake of transparency on Retro Achievements, which was one of the aims of Moderator BahamutVoid in leaving his farewell letter not long after Administrator televandalist’s own resignation letter dropped. If you have any concerns with this mirror, please reach out to clymax directly.
[Editor’s note: Clovergate is not specifically named, so is the timing of her departure merely coincidental? It is up to the reader to decide.]
Via Google Translate; click here for the original version
A little lioness was looking for a banjo kazooie hack. She thought she’d found it, but the site she’d just registered on didn’t offer any links. After two days, she decided to give it a try. She started earning badges and participating in events as well. She was told she was creative enough to become a developer, and she was promoted after her first set. She did her best not to drown in this vast ocean.
When she learned the French team was missing a player, she joined them. Together, they honored Simba’s memory by placing at the top.
Everything was going well.
Unfortunately, destruction fell on the site.
A band of heartless monsters began vandalizing the site. Their decisions changed depending on their mood. They even killed one of the achi in memory of poor Simba.
The harassment was evident. A set disappeared after just a few hours. The site was now less interesting than an idle game.
After years of struggling to stay afloat, she had finally become a good developer, capable of spotting an error in her code fairly quickly. Ironically, it was at this moment that they chose to strip her of this status. No explanation. No reason. No possible justification, because she respected all the rules. But what can be done against the abuse of power?
To this site, which was my home for four and a half years, I say goodbye. I mourn your loss, which is now inevitable. To all my friends, fellow gamers, and fellow developers, I wish you well. Do what you love without worrying about what others think. Only your opinion matters.
To my persecutors: may you one day understand what love and compassion are.
And to everyone in general: it’s never too late to do the right thing.
“That’s it, it’s over” or “Free, delivered,” take your pick.
