RA Has Become a Corrupt Shithole on the Upper Side of Things … and … Have Gotten Infested with Powerhungry Individuals
Hey everyone, thanks for checking in over all these days 🙂
To everyone that I’ve interacted with and worked with: Thanks for building something constructive and productive with me over the past years.
This account is getting deleted in 3 days and I won’t be around on an alt. RA has become a corrupt shithole on the upper side of things, QA, DevComp and even Events Team have gotten infested with powerhungry individuals. The latest rescore proposal topic is another prime example of how without any notice, rescores proposals for active devs are now done behind chambers, while our documentation clearly states that any developer can sponsor a rescore for any dev, regardless of activity.
Be careful of the people that have nothing to lose, or in this case, have nothing in their lives but fake internet points. RA has great potential as a hobby, not a lifestyle. Unfortunately the people that treat it as the latter ruin it for the first group if they step past just being a player.
If you pay clear attention, you will find exactly which individuals prey their way into the minds of new users by trying to control PR, Reddit, Newsposts, etc and trying to make themselves look like the modern messiah.
Go outside. Breathe air. And don’t trust anyone that tries to portray RA as more than a coming together of nerds that like retro games and just want to connect over that. RA is not a business. Don’t trust anyone that’s trying to convince you otherwise. Don’t confuse professionalism and quality improvement with power-hungry control-lusted basement dwellers.
(Nepiki and WCopeland are amazing dudes and not part of the personas mentioned above, despite being in the spotlight a lot. I’m sure you’ll find out who to trust if you look deep enough) Have a great life, and don’t forget to go out and touch grass. I’m logging out of this account permanently after this message, so if it’s gone you can assume censorship 🙂
[Editor’s note: subheading added.]
Top-500 Ranked player Wimpyfox: voiceofautumn was Right
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.
Global Points Ranking Leaderboard
October 18, 2025
Never Give Them an Inch or They Will Take a Mile
I am a simple man. I go to work I play video games. I love the idea of collecting achievements. I love the thrill of collecting. As someone on the Autism Spectrum it just appeals to me. I would love to make RA a permanent place where I can call home.
And because of that willingness to make it a home I am willing to take a stand and fight for it. If that means potentially getting untracked then I am willing to bear that cost. Bullies I have found do not go away because you simply talk to them. No you have to fight them to get respect.
Never give them an inch or they will take a mile. So I ask you who is reading this. Will you take a stand and make your voice heard? Or will you sit idly by and watch as yet another community is torn apart? The choice is yours.
You can follow Aeliana on RA or check out his RA intro 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.
Global Points Ranking Leaderboard
October 18, 2025
Censorship is Not the Answer
I do not agree with the decision to ban Pokemon Clover (nor Custer’s Revenge, nor any game that is not illegal) from having a set on RetroAchievements.
The RetroAchievements Code of Conduct is (was?) very clear:
The presence of an achievement set on our platform does not constitute endorsement of a game’s content, its developers’ views, or its creators’ personal beliefs. Users have control over their experience through our content filtering and warning systems. Games containing mature or potentially offensive content are marked accordingly, and users can adjust their settings to control what they see.
I am disappointed that – against the will of much of his staff – the founder of RetroAchievements did not see it fit to uphold this Code of Conduct in the face of pressure from far-left extremist interests who would seek to not only demonize and cancel media that is in conflict with their own worldview, but also mischaracterize & morally demean any and all users who do not conform to their agenda.
Their analogy of choice is that Pokemon Clover is a racist work and filled with intolerance-normalizing “hate speech,” therefore anyone who would want to play & earn achievements in Pokemon Clover is a “nazi,” and that tolerance of a single “nazi” will result in more and more “nazis” feeling validated, ultimately transforming RetroAchievements into a “nazi bar.” Nothing could be further from the truth… and it is ironic that the solution to “intolerance” is “more intolerance,” and also ironic that the nazis burned books that they deemed weren’t fit for society… but I digress.
I like to think that while ~10% of RetroAchievements users are actual racists and ~10% are far-left extremists, the remaining ~80% are normal people who would be able to enjoy Pokemon Clover (and Family Guy, and South Park, and countless other satirical works in mainstream media) because we can compartmentalize “fantasy” vs. “real life” in our brains and – against all odds – still manage to have a sense of humor in the year of our lord 2025. And I say this as a racially mixed minority who has been subjected to instances of real-life racism, so I’m pretty sure I’m not a racist myself.
This is a slippery slope; if Pokemon Clover is glamorizing “hate speech” and racist ideologies, then Call of Duty & Battlefield are glamorizing war, Grand Theft Auto is glamorizing crime, and the list goes on. Either all of it is okay or none of it is okay. And if none of it is okay, well, we won’t have many video games left to play when the dust settles.
I urge the founder of RetroAchievements to uphold his own Code of Conduct and let users curate their own experience by means of mature content filtering features. If we are bullied by Group A into removing Game A, then we’ve established a precedent where Group B can bully us into removing Game B, Group C can bully us into removing Game C, and so on – to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of RetroAchievements users. Censorship is not the answer.
To see DimensionIceDragon’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 his departure merely coincidental? It is up to the reader to decide.]
I hoped this site is going to be a good one. Welp… My patience is gone. This message would be deleted, I am sure. This site broke my hopes, took a lot of my nerves and my time. All is what I wish is burned, fired, destroyed. Thanks f***ing a lot. I want this site will be permanently deleted because RA is the one big UNWELCOME CONCEPT. Bye, guys! Wish a happy time to players who just play and don’t want to abuse.
By the way, do you remember the song “Sweet dreams”?
Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to abuse you Some of them want to be abused
That is what how I see the most ones of community which have more rights than the other usual players.
I am flying away… Don’t think somebody will miss me…
Prior Message via Jr Dev Channel on RA Discord
August 3, 2025
Firstly, I have been a Junior developer for about 1 year and 7 months now. What have I seen on the website during this time? 2 sets have been released, and the third one still can’t be released. And what happened to me in real life? I’ve changed several jobs, my place of residence, and my lifestyle. I am constantly looking for new ways of entertainment and new knowledge. Besides, my current job doesn’t even allow me to touch my laptop.
Secondly, any plan can very often change beyond recognition during execution. Initially, I planned to make sure that the player gets an achievement at each level. However, Mr. [Code Reviewer A] objected and said that “it is necessary to combine the achievements of the progression into groups.” I was very busy at the time, so I just changed everything in the plan the way he asked. Nevertheless, I was sure that no one would cling to this plan so much, because it was only an approximate one. How can you even come up with a plan from the beginning that you can follow without being able to fix or add anything? What if a new idea comes up? And if the idea already outlined in the plan cannot be implemented? Has anyone even thought about this?
Thirdly, the idea of being able to achieve achievements in creating games is great. I was passionate about this idea and joined the Junior Developer program. Creativity is what I joined the program for. However, on the first set, I was faced with so many limitations that I was ready to give up everything, but I continued anyway. By the way, this was the only time I really got a good experience in creating achievements. The second set lived in misery and was under my wing for 9 months due to the fact that the gentlemen of the Code Reviewers did not deign to spend time on my set for some reason. At the same time, there were comments of about the same nature as here. They clung to every little thing. And then I thought too: “Why would I do that?” Nevertheless, after spending a lot of time and nerves, I still managed to get the set released. So I took the third set with the hope that there would be no problems with it… I discussed a lot of things with Mr. [Code Reviewer B]. Yes, I admit, I could be a little rude in some places, but that’s because I was busy with work. We discussed various options for describing the conditions for obtaining achievements, and talked about logic. Fixed everything, sort of. I didn’t see any more questions… And then suddenly Mr. [Code Reviewer C] (that is, you) comes along and makes so many demands on me, as if everything I had done with [Code Reviewer B] had never existed. I’ve never seen such meticulous demands on a regular set of achievements. I would like to take this opportunity to say that even in various high-paying jobs there are no such strict requirements. Who do the people on this site want to see on the site as developers? Those who will unconditionally comply with the requirements that may change even every week?
This site has only brought me suffering, destroyed a lot of nerves. And the last message you wrote seems to say that I’m also to blame. It’s likely that I’m wrong about that thought, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now. I mean, I didn’t enjoy the whole process. Most of the time, I was just waiting for some Code Reviewer to respond to me. It’s funny that when I needed an answer, I waited for months. And now that all these rules have completely killed my desire to create achievements, they write to me every two weeks. What is it called, may I ask? And now about the set itself. I don’t intend to change anything else about it. That’s the only way. I’m not going to group achievements or change their logic. We have already talked about various technical aspects. Unless it would be possible to change the text descriptions.
And now a little bit about life. Would people really be willing to spend 1.5 years of their lives trying to achieve anything? I’ve achieved a lot more in my real life than on the RetroAchievements website. If you are a living being, then my advice is: touch the grass, drink an unknown drink, just walk 5 kilometers ahead of your house. There are so many things to do in life. And I don’t see any point in dwelling on what doesn’t work out.
Did you want my answer? Well, as I may have said, it’s going to be a long one. And even then, it so happened that I still have free time to write all of the above. It would be great if this set were released in the form it is in now (with corrected text descriptions). I put a lot of energy and nerves into it. There are interesting achievements there. But the constant digging into the little things just completely killed the desire to continue doing this. And the problem is not with me, but with the site and the rules. So you’re saying we should stick to the plan, right? At the same time, there is no strict set of rules for creating achievements on the RetroAchievements website. It is only from the code reviewers that I learn any additional conditions that were not spelled out in the original document. Great.
Am I missing something? Don’t see the whole picture? Maybe. Maybe I’m wrong in some aspects. But the point still doesn’t change. I told it the way it is.
I am extremely disappointed…
[Editor’s note: DimensionIceDragon was stripped of his Junior Developer role following this message.]
