Last Sunday, the popular ROM hacking resource website Romhacking.net rejected one fan’s Pokémon Crystal hack. While rejected hacks aren’t unusual, what was unusual was the reasoning.
This fan hacked the game so that the Pokémon move “attract” worked on all genders, and it was rejected for being a “political statement” that would attract “SJWs” (social justice warriors). Since then, Romhacking.net has indefinitely suspended the staffer, but there’s still some question as to how this all happened.
Dr. Dos, a programmer and web developer, wasn’t surprised that it took a while for his Pokémon Crystal hack, which was his first ROM hack ever, to be reviewed by the staff at Romhacking. “The hack got uploaded in late March and the site lets registered users view the queue of submissions with upload dates being visible,” he said.
“I got to watch as everything before my hack got processed, and then everything after. It was certainly easy to assume it was deliberately being avoided, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and figured it might require somebody higher up to approve or something since it was a fresh account’s first upload.”
What did surprise him was the response he got once his hack was officially rejected. It read, “Sorry but this hack would ‘attract’ undesirable attention to SJWs as some sort of political statement which the site also does not allow.” The term “SJWs” is often used in a derogatory way to refer to people who talk about progressive issues; in this case, simply making a Pokémon move gender-agnostic seemed to apply.
Dr. Dos was taken aback, and told Kotaku, “Gaming communities routinely get called out for fostering negative communities that push a lot of people away and cater to loud arseholes, but I didn’t expect an official reason for rejection to use the term ‘SJW’.”
Romhacking.net, one of the biggest websites for sharing and download modifications of ROMs (files of old video games), hosts over four thousand hacks and has been in operation for over ten years. Within the community of people who like to hack old video games, it’s a big deal.
Dr. Dos posted about this on social media on Sunday. In response, Romhacking.net said on Monday that the staff member who rejected the hack had been “indefinitely suspended.”
“The staff member responsible for the rejection is not familiar with the politics of the day, and didn’t realise he used dog whistling language,” a representative from Romhacking wrote on Twitter.
“He doesn’t hang out in the sections of the Internet where it is used, either sarcastically or for its intended purpose of being a hateful term. We deeply regret how this went down. We promise this mistake won’t happen again any time soon.”
Nightcrawler, the founder of Romhacking told Kotaku via email that the organisation as a whole did not stand behind the decision to reject the hack, that they stand with the LGBTQ+ community, and they want to make things right.
“As a group, we are terribly embarrassed and apologetic for the actions and words from one of our submission reviewers,” Nighcrawler wrote. “Our volunteer part-time staff members around the globe are often unable to make timely coordinated group decisions. Individual latitude is often taken as a result to keep the ball rolling with hundreds of submissions per month. Contacting us on the website (Help->Contact Staff) is important to both alerting us of problems like this and in resolving them. We do not have website submission support over social media outlets. We acknowledge the mistakes made here and will strive to do better.”
They also said that they’re taking this as an opportunity to put out a call for submissions for LGBTQ+ romhacks.
“We’ve carried such hacks since our first year in 2006 with Celes + Terra!” they wrote. That hack changed Final Fantasy VI to include a lesbian romance between Terra and Celes. “Let’s make this a call to gather up all the other completed LGBTQ+/SAGA themed hacks we can and proudly display them on ROMhacking.net!”
Dr. Dos’s Pokémon Crystal hack has also been resubmitted, and this time approved. He still has some concerns, though.
“Once I found out the person that rejected me had been ‘talked to’ my fears were: how many other hacks did they reject for being ‘too political?’” Dr. Dos wrote. “I’ve got enough of a voice on Twitter for these things to spread a little, but does everyone?”
Concerned fans on Twitter were also sceptical of the site’s public explanation for why this now ex-staffer used the term “SJW.”
“So he didn’t know what the term meant, but still used it as a reason for removing it?” one concerned person wrote on Twitter. “If this is true then who the hell was he referring to when he said that?”
Kotaku reached out to the ex-staffer who rejected Dr. Dos’ hack, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
It’s good to know that RHDN stands behind Dr. Dos and anyone who wants to make a ROM hack with LQBTQ+ terms. What’s frustrating is that it took such a public fuck up to get this staffer removed from the process, and that there isn’t a clear standardised method for accepting hacks at such a longrunning site.
“I could’ve just not posted the email and this person would still be deciding what gets approved/rejected,” Dr. Dos said. “There’s no real way for anybody outside of RHDN to know, so I do hope they have (or start to implement) some systems to better deal with a bad actor in the future.”
Comments
57 responses to “ROM Hacking Website Removes Volunteer Staffer Who Took Down LGBT-Friendly Pokémon Hack”
Oh noes! Call the thought police!
How dare they stop him from censoring something. Free speech!
Literally the first fucking comment defends a dickhead being shitty for no reason.
You know, only a couple of years ago this site had a comparatively unshitty comments section? It’s like gamergate convinced a whole lot of otherwise reasonable people that anything less than actively working to make life shit for minorities is gay space communism.
pokedad you just lost your shit to a shitposter….you want him to win?
you know, only a couple of years ago this site and others systematically misrepresented a movement known as gamergate i would love to hear your definition of gamergate just for the lols but anyway.
This is absolutely a political statement however i don’t think it was right to block it, and not wanting SJW’s to be encouraged to join a space is completely understandable considering they are trouble makers and some of the most annoying humans on earth.
that is a nice example of SJW nonsense right there, clearly you are saying that this comment section is full of gamergaters or people sympathetic to gamergate (probably because they looked into the movement and found out the truth instead of reading buzzfeed) please explain to me how a anyone in this comment section is actively working to make life shit for minorities.
I’ve read dissertations on gamergate. It was a plausible deniability smokescreen for some really fucked up people to use so they could be really fucked up. Then a lot of people were fooled by the smokescreen and joined the bandwagon.
Many still believe that the whole thing wasn’t a lie at its core. Like you, for example. I don’t hold it against you because these things work for a reason. A bunch of bad actors use a legitimate concern as a trojan horse for their fucked up agenda.
If you don’t think all the anti-inclusion shit on this forum doesn’t actively hurt people, you’re very naive.
i think i have seen the same dissertations and i wouldn’t wipe my ass with them, instead of just telling me it was a lie at it’s core tell me what you think the core was and how it was a lie. or don’t it’s not that relevant anyway considering even if you are correct and the whole thing was a smokescreen that all these people don’t know about then what the fuck is the problem, i mean they don’t know the truth but they fell for the lie meaning they support the so called “lie” so they aren’t actually bad people they just want some accountability in games journalism?
i don’t know pokedad i think maybe you put too much faith in documentation i think you should have instead been inside the movement like i was, I interacted with thousands of people during gamergate on the gamergate side alone and they are not raging bigots, misogynists and racists like you seem to be claiming, it’s just not accurate to what i experienced, what i did see was a certain bunch of feminists calling every critical word aimed at them harassment, rape threats or death threats and then oddly enough never involving the police or proving the claims with any actual evidence.
point me to the active behavior that is hurting people pokedad, don’t give me nebulous bullshit like “anti-inclusion shit” unless you are actually trying to tell me somebody was hurt because they can’t play “gay’ pokemon.
i just realised i don’t think anyone has even bothered to say what they think about this article, assuming it’s all true which is naive since Gita wrote it. I think personally that the person was wrong to ban the gay hack, however they are 100% on the money that it is a political statement and not wanting SJW’s to come calling makes sense they are aggravating trouble makers. But nothing would guarantee they come stomping all over your shit more than banning this sort of hack. So not only was it wrong but it would have the opposite effect…. the guys an idiot.
You: Where’s the evidence?
Also you: Evidence is stupid.
I’m not your teacher. If you don’t want to put in the effort, then that’s fine. But I’m not going to force you and I don’t get paid to try and get you to learn critical research and reading skills. I’ve read peer reviewed, research based work with evidence sourced from chat logs and records at the time and even statements from the person who started the ball rolling. It was a harassment campaign. A shitty campaign full of shitty people gleefully stalking and threatening people who conveniently hid behind the rubes who couldn’t stop screaming “ethics in game journalism” long enough to give a second of critical thought.
I was trying to engage with the rest of what you wrote, but holy shit you are a mental gymnastics olympian and I just don’t have the patience to slowly tease out every missed point and assumed ‘fact’.
well i can’t say your response is surprising, gamergate was nothing but a harassment campaign gleeful shitty people. Your evidence is peer reviewed critical research, which you think is correct and i think is worth shit because peer reviewed doesn’t mean anything when it comes to these topics, i was in the movement and while i did see people occasionally that represent the strawman your pushing it was very very few people.
you completely dismiss the shitty behavior of people in the gaming industry because they got harassment…. well done you fell for exactly what they planned you to fall for the harassment campaign narrative while based on truth is also missing a huge portion of the story, the fact that you did some “reading” and decided that there was no ethics problem but instead there was a harassment issue is exactly the position i would expect you to have.
like most things gamergate hast shit heads on both sides the reason you piss me off is you dismiss one side completely and sometimes i don’t know why in this case you decided that some people being shitty harassers against some people excuses the fact that those same people did some fucked up shit, and the other people in gamergate who had legitimate critiques get dumped in the same shit bin by you because they also use the hashtag.
i don’t really care about gamergate first it’s over and second you will never change your mind and continue to use it as a wedge issue for the rest of time or whenever you want to try and label someone on these forums as an undesirable menace.
what i would really like you to do is substantiate your completely bullshit claim that anybody in here is ACTIVELY making life shit for minorities, keep in mind that i do not give a shit about gamergate that is a closed topic and i don’t give a shit about any other deflection issue you come up with. either apologise and admit you were being hyperbolic or stand by the statement and give an example, a real example not “somebody might be offended”. Because being offended is not having your life shit on.
Well the first comment on this article is a person actively trying to make life shitty for people, so I guess there’s your answer.
Unless you understand that discourse is powerful and that social cohesion is based upon agreed sets of acceptable actions and power dynamics, it’s not a conversation worth having.
Society is only as “good” as the worst thing we allow. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. People under the Gamergate banner accepted harassment, coercion, and violence. By allowing those people to be in your movement, you accepted their actions. Which poisoned the entire movement and those acceptances – and the resulting backlash against women, POC, and LGBTQI people in gaming culture – remain firmly entrenched. If you think that institutionalised marginalisation of people only matters when they’re being beaten up or denied a job, you’re probably lucky enough to have never suffered from it. Listen to the people who have.
Every time someone wants to change the status quo to be fairer or less dismissive/aggressive to a minority, some people come out to fight that change. That’s actively working against a better culture. Which is actively working toward making (or keeping) the negatives in certain people’s lives negative. Gamergate had a net effect of strengthening the power of those people, even if some people in it had legitimate concerns.
Yes and no. SJW is generally accepted as people who take progressive issues to the extreme. Groups or people that take extreme action or are protesting someone for simply having different opinions. e.g. the constant harassment Ben Shapiro gets, even being called a Nazi on occasion, which is pretty stupid given he is Jewish. ANTIFA could also come under it.
No.
SJW was a term that applies to people like MLK jr and Malala Yousefzai.
Bigots use it in a derogatory fashion against anyone who disagrees with them.
Exactly. It’s often used in the same way as others, of a different political bent, use the term ‘Nazi’.
The irony of this statement is delicious. Kudos to the chef.
Where is the irony?
The people often referred to as “SJW’s”, themselves, often label those who disagree with them (or not as “woke”) as bigots, racists, misogynists, internalized misogynists, nazis, etc….. Hence, irony.
@jajgi nailed it- “SJW” usually refers to those who take progressive issues to the extreme, so much so that they interfere with the lives and well-being of those whom they disagree with.
Nah, it doesn’t.
That’s not irony… it’s hypocritial, if you like. But it’s not irony.
In my experience, those who too easily dole the term “SJW” in a derogatory way are precisely the same who, after saying something objectively bigoted, get surprised and upset when someone calls them out. People who think, for example, that racism is exclusively placing a black man in chains, administering 100 lashes and/or forcing him to work in a cotton plantation and absolutely anything short of that are merely “jokes” or “freedom-of-speech-protected opinions” and as such, the burden is on everybody else to “man up” and not take offense. and that only “virtue-signaling SJWs” would disagree.
Funnily enough, those people who so passionately believe that minorities should take almost all kinds of abuse quietly and unflinchingly are also the same who react to the mere drop of the word “bigot” like somebody just punched their mother in the face.
you are such a liar pylgrim in this case anyway, as someone who usually presents a reasonable if bias perspective it’s odd to see you type something so completely insane.
supply an example of someone who has these beliefs about racism that isn’t in the KKK, good luck.
As for the rest of your statement i’m not taking the bait, SJW’s are extremists and they shout bigot and racist at anyone who disagree’s with them and might shut up if just abused with certain phrases and you know it, the reason people are reacting to being called bigot that way is because they aren’t a bigot and 99/100 times the behavior your citing as the excuse for your character assassination isn’t bigoted either unless viewed through the absurdly extreme lens of an SJW, EXAMPLE SEEN ABOVE.
the amount of times in just the last few months i have seen someone be called a racist or a bigot without doing or saying anything to warrant such a label is staggering now i come here and i have to read your completely bonkers strawman of people who disagree with you but also some other guy is making the argument that we all “ACTIVELY” shit on minorities or something no that if you aren’t actively shitting on minorities then your a gay space commmunist that was it… want wait to scroll further im sure one of you extremists has accused half the Kotaku comment section of “literally erasing trans people from existence” that one was fun i haven’t seen it for a few months….
but remember guys pylgrim and pokedad etc etc aren’t extremists they are the voice of reason among a storm of bigots.
Also, I have never heard MLK Jr or Malala referref\d to as “SJW’s”. Probably because they never aggressively push(ed) their ideology on others or in a negative and off-putting manner.
This is … at least a little bit ahistorical. Both of them were literally shot because people found their ideology negative and off-putting. MLK was absolutely viewed as an extremist during his time. What were the March on Washington or the Montgomery Bus Boycott or Selma if not aggressively pushing his ideology on others?
You didn’t exist at the time the term was made or used.
Really? Malala was born well over a decade after I was and the term “SJW” only came into use around 2011. You’re gravely mistaken on both points.
Furthermore, growing up in the city where MLK Jr held his famous march and made his most iconic speech, I studied him in school, and there was no mention of him ever being called a “SJW”.
Martin Luther King Jr pushed his agenda so aggressively and offputtingly that bigots straight up fucking murdered him.
You dolt.
your the dolt he did not push his agenda in that manner the sacks of shit that killed him are the only people who believe that so stop identifying with them
It’s fucking wild how far you can miss a point by.
He wanted to change a thing.
A bunch of people thought he was terrible and annoying and talking bullshit so they said “You are bad and wrong. Stop.”
He refused.
They said “You are bad and wrong I swear if you don’t stop we will kill you”.
He refused.
They killed him. For saying words they didn’t like in a way they thought was annoying.
You dolt.
That’s your rebuttal? That and direct name-calling? Nothing is ever that simple and clear-cut.
MLK Jr wasn’t aggressive in the way being discussed, and you know it. He didn’t go around physically attacking people or trying to have them de-platformed for disagreeing with him. He was murdered because people didn’t like his message and saw that too many people for their liking, black and white, were starting to agree with it.
But, hypothetically, let’s say that MLK Jr was aggressive, as you claim, and couple that with the false claim, which I provided a rebuttal for, that he was labelled a “SJW”, then that would only strengthen my point that SJW’s have a habit of taking
Who the hell physically attacked anyone? You and Ilexi… You could take home the gold.
“people didn’t like his message and saw that too many people for their liking, black and white, were starting to agree with it.”
The fact that you don’t see the parallels here is telling. Enjoy being mad all the time as the rest of the world increasingly stops being shitty to people for no reason and it upsets your sensibilities.
i don’t think i am missing your point i just don’t consider refusing to be silenced by bigots to be aggressively pushing an agenda, do you really think his refusal to be silenced is aggressive and offputting?
surely that is how the people that killed him felt but i hardly think they would be a reliable source on what is aggressive and offputting right?
i mean they are racists and murderers my dude.
How the fuck are you being silenced when you’re talking freely about how much you like silencing people?
This shit is through the looking glass.
i saw that response about me thinking i was being silenced and your mental reaction to a non existent argument, i have edited the post with 1 bolded word so go back and read what i said again because i was talking about MLK not myself you fool.
also how dare you accuse me of physically hurting people of colour now i have had to re-post this because some jackass moderator thinks it’s fine for you to accuse me of assault but i’m not allowed to insult you so please imagine i have typed something incredibly offensive to you in response to your slander.
you are a parody of a kind human, non existent racists living in your head rent free have turned you into one of the most hateful and bigoted people i have ever come across and i regularly have arguments with white nationalists, it is time you get some perspective on what is actually happening in reality, instead of this racism filled fever dream you inhabit.
The are cinemas that don’t project this much.
Those crazy SJWs and their extreme positions like “gay people exist.”
Hold up, your mixing extremism with a resonable progressive ideal there.
This is the problem with modern political discussion right now, the ability to cherry pick bits and pieces from each side to create a false narrative to suit each persons chosen ideological bubble.
You certainly aren’t the only person who’s doing that here, the idea that SWJ only gets used against extreme progressives is another example, it’s simply not true.
Those on the left and right tend to only see the resonable parts of their own spectrum while ignoring the extreme and negative end.
On the other hand when it comes to identifying the opposite side they focus more on the extreme parts as the defining characteristics of those they disagree with as a means of dismissing them.
It’s really just a false paradigm politicians have weaponised for their own interests, there is no actual left or right and the majority of people actually align naturally with centrist views with a lean either way.
It’s a pattern as old as politics and giving voice and attention to the extremes has always resulted in stagnation, division and ultimately violence and a breakdown of stability.
Age has often played a major part as youth tend to look forward and push for a future that isn’t always sustainable while the elderly pine for a time that doesn’t really exist anymore.
It’s not that gay people don’t exist, it’s when there’s a minority of people being congratulated for simply existing, it’s personally embarrassing.
I’d be sitting there, watching a movie, and one friend will be all, “This character seems cool” (They’re talking about a gay character in the film) and another one will say “Yeah but they’re badly written, they should focus more on this character, also they should have a gay writer do the character building cause obviously the writers of this movie are straight. Hey JC (not gonna use my real name) you should write this character, you’d do a better job”.
It’s that kind of crap that I hate, just because a character is gay doesn’t mean that they need the spotlight, or their own spinoff series, they’re a minor character in that story just like the other 90% of the random faces in the background, characters are allowed to be basic and boring and 2D.
I could be sitting there eating cereal, and I’ll be defended by people just because of my sexual orientation, I never asked for it, plus there’ll be scenarios where I’ll be chosen for something BECAUSE of my sexual orientation, not because of my own career driven abilities.
SJWs need to stop being heroes, is basically my take from it.
So basically people should be treated as people without making a big deal out of inconsequential details such as gender, race, sexual orientation, etc?
the fact that you characterise people that disagree with you as being people that “don’t believe gay people exist” is what makes you a nutty SJW extremist
benefit of the doubt though since i don’t recognise you please take this opportunity to point out who said gay people don’t exist, if you can’t find anyone then maybe take a bit of time and consider if maybe you have several phantoms living in your head one racist one homophobic etc, and what your actually doing in these arguments is projecting one of your mind phantoms onto the other person so you can just call them some pejorative and avoid having to defend your position/statements.
– Dr. Dos creates mod that does literally nothing except allow gay/bi people to exist
– Mod gets banned by someone saying this is “SJW” nonsense
– @jagji explains that “SJW” only refers to people with totally extreme opinions
So what was the totally extreme SJW position being discussed in the article, if not “gay people exist”?
It’s certainly not how it’s actually wielded though.
The comment further down about extremism being something as resonable as gays existing is the same as trying to ground the SWJ term in a resonable light of being just a label for extremist views, its not a realistic view.
It’s purely a means of dissmissing and creating a negative frame.
Shapiro being called a Nazi and a facist is a fair point of how extremists label those they disagree with but his purpose isn’t actually discussion and debate, he seeks only to perpetuate the falacy as well.
He focuses only on the extreme elements of those he opposes as a means to highlight them while allowing extreme elements from the opposition to see themselves from a resonable standpoint.
I’ve never for a second believed folks like him from either “side” actually seek what they claim because people with that kind of intelligence and insight should be well aware of the faux left vs right paradigm.
In a civil discussion/debate he would likely come off as being more resistant than resonable or forced to accept some opposing views, something he takes great pains to avoid.
The hack itself is fine. But Dr Dos did make an interesting quote:
This, ironically, could apply to many, so-called ‘progressive’, communities. It seems pretty hard these days to say anything on the internet without being banned by someone, especially on community forums. Everyone seems to get offended at the drop of a hat, and expects that the offender should be ostracised. It breeds a climate of fear and uncertainty, where everyone is looking over their figurative shoulder, and ostentatiously toes the party line in vulgar displays of virtue-signalling. It’s almost impossible to have a debate without encountering ad hominem arguments from people who are ‘offended’ by the mere exchange of ideas.
OT but I think the mods put you on the moderation list, though I haven’t seen anything recently that would warrant it. Your comments popped in out of no where.
It’s not the mods. It’s automatic based on whether you get too many down-voted comments. Then poor old Alex has to go through and mod the comments until the system decides I’ve been a good boy 😛
I’ve been doing it manually lately as I noticed people starting to complain about the moderation bot. I make sure to go back a few pages to check we don’t miss anyone.
Thanks for making sure no one gets left behind. Much appreciated.
Cheers Olivia.
Thank you
Seems pretty foot-shoot-y to acknowledge awareness of a community that reacts negatively to gender-based-discrimination at the same time he discriminated due to fearing negative backlash. If he truly would /not/ have disallowed the game due to its being queer-friendly, wouldn’t it have been much more logical to let the game pass without comment? Pretty sure that would have attracted less “SJWs”.
Also, please stop talking about “virtue-signaling”. It really speaks poorly of you when your first (and usually only) assumption about people seeking justice, equality, etc is that they do it for petty and self-interested reasons even if they were as mistaken as you think they are. Is it seriously so hard to believe that people truly believe in these causes?
you are right that it was a stupid move if the idea was to keep SJW’s away because this kind of thing is literally what they live for.
you think it is unfair to assume virtue signalling ie that these kinds of people are “seeking justice” out of self interest, maybe you have a point about assumptions but the way things are now online it actually saves time, because yes most of the people who talk about these things are doing nothing but virtue signalling. They don’t do anything but whine online and form roving bands of “slacktavists” the odds of coming across someone who doesn’t have a selfish motive seems to be rare these days.
to be clear i would not regard you to be a virtue signaler or an SJW, you occasionally say some pretty inflammatory things that resemble SJW rhetoric but you are markedly different because you actually want a discussion. One of the defining factors with these kinds of people is that they don’t want a debate at all that is why they craft strawman and yell racist at you to try and shut you up.
really wish this guy had thought it through and not banned the hack in the first place and maybe we could have avoided a comment section filled with ad hominem garbage because he did the wrong thing.
The term “SJW” is rather abused, and often used to abuse. My eyes roll when I see it bandied about, all to easily, in many online comments.
Also, way to read too much into a simple hack. You know you’ve been too long on the internet when you start interpreting stuff like this as a “political statement”. Ouch, ouch, my eyes!
While I can definitely see this happening, I doubt Dr. Dos had any intention of his work being interpreted as overly political (ie. it doesn’t look like he was dog-whistling anything). This sounds like a case of the volunteer staffer getting a bit over-zealous and then Romhacking.net responding appropriately by, though perhaps a warning would have been better, assuming the staffer wasn’t already on notice for previous negative occurrences.
If the intention is to ward off “SJWs” then rejecting a socially progressive ROM hack seems counter productive. See: The Streisand effect.
Sometimes the best response is no response. That way, you piss off nobody. Of course, sitting on the fence is not always the best choice, but in this instance I think that would have best.
sitting on the fence sometimes just serves to have both sides throwing rocks at you, take these forums for instance the last place you want to be in this places is trying to tell 2 polar opposite sides they are both wrong.
it gets ugly
Nightcrawler’s always been a really stand-up individual, I’ve played several of the translation hacks he’s contributed to and they’re always top quality.
i love the idea of this, but wouldn’t want it to be purely gender agnostic.
I love the concept of having this move have a probability factor into it, say a 20% chance to work on matching genders and a 20% chance to fail on opposing genders.
studies show that 1/5 pokemon are gay