the anil kerfuffle

Eric's text wall:

Text version for our English-speaking friends. If you'll give me a minute, I'd like to clarify the situation surrounding the release of Pokémon Anil: Definitive Edition. About a year and a half ago, encouraged by the unwavering support that Pokémon Anil was receiving from the community, I announced that I was giving full freedom to create mods of the game and share those mods. Since then, many users have made their own small editions of Pokémon Anil. The case addressed in this statement is that of Pokémon Anil: Definitive Edition, a mod created by two talented makers from the community, Skyflyer and Dpertierra, on their own initiative. This mod, among other improvements, would add certain online features such as battling and trading between players—something that has been highly requested due to the rise of duallocks. When I saw this, I spoke with Skyflyer and Dpertierra to propose that this mod be transferred to the standard version of the game, turning it into an official update. They agreed and kept working on it, while I left the situation somewhat unsupervised since I was focused on finishing Pokémon Z. But I made a technical mistake that I shouldn't have made. A few days ago, I found out that with this update, due to the management of the online features, I would lose access to PokémonAnil and it would instead be hosted on another PC, meaning I would have to go through Skyflyer and Dpertierra every time I wanted to modify or add something. Skyflyer and Dpertierra offered me—I'm sure in good faith—to collaborate with them, but with the condition that from now on, decisions would be made jointly by the three of us, with me giving up a large part of the creative control and the final say over my own game. As the author, I believe it would have been suicide to accept something like that. But by then, the mod was almost finished and in testing. And there was already a lot of work behind it. So in the end, it was released by them as a version of Pokémon Anil separate from the official one. I want to stress that I don't believe Skyflyer and Dpertierra acted in bad faith. I think they simply assumed that I would have no problem with the agreement described above. The mistake was mine for not clarifying these terms until it was too late. Since my “ethics” as a creator make me prioritize the players' enjoyment, I'm not going to ask you for anything. Play the version of Pokémon Anil you like best. As for me, I'll continue updating the official version of the game. I don't know if, in time, I'll end up losing Pokémon Anil. That would be a hard blow. All I can do is focus on my next projects and learn from this experience.

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Sky's Text Wall:

I also want to address this to avoid any misunderstandings. Months ago, Eric gave the community complete freedom to create Pokémon Indigo mods. In that context, a friend and I decided to start a dualocke, and from there, I saw the possibility of updating it, moving it to my Essentials base. This would not only improve performance but also allow us to add many new features. Furthermore, Eric has often stated that Indigo is the game he's made the fastest and with the least attention to detail, so it was an opportunity to improve all of these things. I mentioned this to @dpertierra, my partner in this project, and he wanted to sign on with me as a co-creator. I pitched the idea directly to Eric, with whom I've always had a good relationship. He encouraged us to move forward, and shortly after suggesting it, he himself proposed that this version become the official one, featuring it on his website, although he didn't ask to participate in its development or review what we were implementing. It was at that moment that the name of the new version, Definitive Edition, was born, following this mentality of becoming the new Indigo for everyone. Furthermore, we knew that the new Indigo would serve as a new foundation for Eric to improve his games, since we were going to adapt all his code to this new version and save him a lot of work for his future projects, since he himself has indicated several times that he would like to move both Z and Opal to our foundation. As I understood it at the time, everyone won: him with these facilities and us by releasing this project that we were excited to do. For three months, we worked (much of it during my streams and in public) with Diego's help, improving and polishing the game. We always made it clear that it was an update made by us and that, at all times, Añil would remain Eric's original work, as we understood it, even though at the time of its release, Eric was going to adopt this new version (this was what was agreed upon between the three of us at the time). The disagreement arose literally four days before launch, when differences arose over some artistic changes or additions and over who should have the final say on the version. This was due to Eric seeing some changes made to the test version, such as, for example, the removal of blood from Erica's scene or the ability to choose the gender of the characters after choosing your avatar (something we ultimately removed after Eric's refusal). All of this was based on what he saw being reported on the test channel, since up until that point, he hadn't actually played the game. From our perspective, after all the work invested, it was only fair that the decisions be made between the three of us, since this modification was ultimately something we were responsible for; from his perspective, he preferred to maintain absolute control and the ability to eliminate things we'd worked on without discussion. Faced with this legitimate difference, the healthiest thing to do was to part ways: he continued with his version, and we with ours. Had we not done so, we would have ended up working for him on a bespoke basis for free, which wouldn't have been right either, when this was something we wanted to do primarily for ourselves. Likewise, before this situation, we tried to emphasize that we could always discuss things he wanted to add among the three of us, and we would practically always give him the go-ahead (why wouldn't we?).But he shielded himself by saying that it would always end up being a two-on-one and that he would lose total control of his game, something I don't understand and I'm disappointed that he actually thought that about us. Unfortunately, the name was already set for the Fangame Showcase and it wasn't feasible to modify it four days before the game's release. The trailer has been made since August 29th, and with just enough time to fix bugs in the game, we didn't have time to change anything. I think it's understandable. But we've made it clear at all times, even in the game itself, that this version of Indigo is a modification made by us, not by Eric. I want to emphasize that there was never any intention to appropriate his project or to detract from it. Everyone knows that Pokémon Indigo is his. We've simply worked with love on an update that expands its possibilities, and all we want is for people to enjoy it. We've dedicated countless hours and effort to creating it, and even spent money out of our own pockets to be able to add an online mode. That's why I wanted to explain myself a little, even though these things drain a lot of my energy. I hope this makes everything a little clearer and avoids false accusations of ill intent, as I see emerging. No one has tried to take advantage of anyone. I wanted to make a better version of a game because I saw it as feasible and because I felt like it, and at the time I had the creator's approval. If Eric wanted more control, the reasonable thing would have been to make that clear long beforehand, not so few days before release. That would have saved us from this misunderstanding and the feeling of injustice we're experiencing now. I love making games and having people enjoy them, and this has been a new opportunity to do so, temporarily pausing my game to make this one because I knew that in a short time I could make something really cool that a lot of people would like. So, that's all I've said. I hope no more negative comments arise and that you understand that, from now on, this version will exist independently of Eric's. He, for his part, will continue to have his game on his website for anyone who prefers to download it, as we both agreed. Thank you very much for reading.I want to emphasize that there was never any intention to appropriate his project or diminish his merit. Everyone knows that Pokémon Indigo belongs to him. We've simply worked with love on an update that expands its possibilities, and all we want is for people to enjoy it. We've dedicated countless hours and effort to creating it, and even spent our own money to add an online mode. That's why I wanted to explain myself a little, even though these things drain a lot of my energy. I hope this makes everything a little clearer and avoids false accusations of malicious intent, as I see emerging. No one wanted to take advantage of anyone. I wanted to make a better version of a game because I saw it as feasible and because I felt like it, and at the time I had the creator's approval. If Eric wanted more control, the reasonable thing would have been to make that clear much earlier and not so few days before release. That would have saved us from this misunderstanding and the feeling of injustice we're experiencing now. I love making games and having people enjoy them, and this has been a new opportunity to do so. I temporarily put my game on hold to make this one because I knew I could quickly create something really cool that a lot of people would enjoy. So, for my part, that's all said and done. I hope there aren't any more negative comments and that you understand that, from now on, this version will exist independently from Eric's. He, for his part, will continue to have his game on his website for anyone who prefers to download it, as we both agreed. Thank you very much for reading.I want to emphasize that there was never any intention to appropriate his project or diminish his merit. Everyone knows that Pokémon Indigo belongs to him. We've simply worked with love on an update that expands its possibilities, and all we want is for people to enjoy it. We've dedicated countless hours and effort to creating it, and even spent our own money to add an online mode. That's why I wanted to explain myself a little, even though these things drain a lot of my energy. I hope this makes everything a little clearer and avoids false accusations of malicious intent, as I see emerging. No one wanted to take advantage of anyone. I wanted to make a better version of a game because I saw it as feasible and because I felt like it, and at the time I had the creator's approval. If Eric wanted more control, the reasonable thing would have been to make that clear much earlier and not so few days before release. That would have saved us from this misunderstanding and the feeling of injustice we're experiencing now. I love making games and having people enjoy them, and this has been a new opportunity to do so. I temporarily put my game on hold to make this one because I knew I could quickly create something really cool that a lot of people would enjoy. So, for my part, that's all said and done. I hope there aren't any more negative comments and that you understand that, from now on, this version will exist independently from Eric's. He, for his part, will continue to have his game on his website for anyone who prefers to download it, as we both agreed. Thank you very much for reading.I hope there aren't any more negative comments and that you understand that, from now on, this version will exist independently of Eric's. He, for his part, will continue to have his game on his website for anyone who prefers to download it, as we both agreed. Thank you very much for reading.I hope there aren't any more negative comments and that you understand that, from now on, this version will exist independently of Eric's. He, for his part, will continue to have his game on his website for anyone who prefers to download it, as we both agreed. Thank you very much for reading.

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Eric's response:

Well, having both of us explained this, I think it can all be summed up as Sky and Dpertierra knowing how to play well within the rules of the game I myself established, although these were rules I didn't know how to define the limits properly due to my inexperience. The conflict isn't going to escalate further because there's no ill intent on either side. I also don't think there's any agreement on what to do next with "2 Indigos." Players can take advantage of this situation and enjoy it, and I'll try to provide news about the next Pokémon Indigo update soon. When I'm more free of Pokémon Z.