A well argued, thoughtful piece. Thank you for this, Mr. Schreier: it’s a welcome voice of reason amidst a sea of kneejerk reactions and insults on both sides of the debate.

I think you’re misunderstanding my point. My argument isn’t with individual modders who chose to participate in the system. I disagree with that decision, but it’s up to them to make their own decisions. My complaint was that the system is inherently incompatible with the existing Skyrim mod scene. Saying that people…

Oddly enough, the number of modders who came out against the system seem to have greatly outstripped the number of modders who spoke up in favor of it, let alone those who actually participated in it (the /r/skyrimmods subreddit was collecting the responses, both for and against).

I would love to see the idea of donations to mod authors get more traction. But, speaking as someone who has been speaking out against the paid mods plan, both in terms of the specifics of the plan and the abstract idea, since it was announced last week, I think the people touting donations as a perfect alternative to…

People could make a killing just by making good assets for others to use in their own mods.

I’d have less of a problem if the system was introduced from the “ground up,” honestly. I’m partial to the current Skyrim mod scene, and I think it’s incredibly naive to believe that the sense of cooperation and collaboration could have emerged in a situation where for-profit mods are the norm, so I’m not claiming I…

This, exactly.

I should back up: I am most assuredly not a lawyer, so I’m not entirely comfortable saying that there’s absolutely no (legal) problem at all. But the biggest potential red flag (repackaging someone else’s work for your own profit) doesn’t apply. My gut reaction is that there’s likely no legal issue, and whether or not…

This situation is being widely misreported. Chesko didn’t include any art of FNIS in his mods. FNIS is a framework that was required for parts of Chesko’s mods to function as intended, but the content itself is all Chesko’s own. He had no more legal obligation to Fore than a developer who makes a program for Windows…

Surreal. Of all the games Square Enix could have chosen to actually put significant effort into a PC port, they choose Final Fantasy IV: The After Years? I mean, I don’t hate the game like you do (but then, I like early SNES-era throwback grind-fests), but after half-assing Final Fantasy VII, VIII, III, and IV, this is…

Eh. I’m fairly indifferent towards The After Years. I can’t really dispute any of the good Mr. Schreier’s points, but... eh, I found enough to enjoy about the game despite all of that. It’s by no means a great, or even a particularly good game, really, but I don’t regret buying it, and I’ve certainly played far worse…

I agree. It was... mostly inoffensive. The characterization of the turtles was good, the acting was halfway decent (which puts it a couple of notches above most of Michael Bay’s films), and, aside from a handful of weird plot points (the “learn ninjitsu from a book” bit being the worst), the plot was generally…

He was made into a white guy for the 80’s cartoon for some reason.

That certainly didn’t help matters, but I it wasn’t the biggest factor. It explains certain changes (“Gilbert” changed to “Edward” to fit into the 6 character name limit, “Milon” instead of “Scarmiglione,” etc.). And there were certain content-related changed, too (“White” instead of “Holy,” mandated by Nintendo of…

When I was much younger, my bar for judging the quality of a fan translation was “can I see an actual big publisher putting this out”? Which was weirdly naive, looking back: looking at NES and SNES era games, there’s probably more polish in the fan translation scene than there is among commercially released titles.

Which is really the problem with the Final Fantasy IV/Final Fantasy II localization. It’s not technically bad on the level of, say Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy Tactics. It doesn’t get the basic grammar wrong (“this guy are sick”) or mistranslate common terms (“rich” instead of “lich,” “bracelet” instead of…

Like all early Final Fantasy games, her name is configurable. It defaults to “Aeris” in the original English localization, but can be modified as the player sees fit. Personally, I went with “Aerith,” because I’d been following the game for long enough that the “-s” suffix looked weird to me.

I dislike the Souls games and the community turns me right off, but I’m not a fan of that quote. “Mistake it for fun” reminds me way too much of “forced difficulty,” and I find the entire concept weird. If I sit down and enjoy a game, I’m enjoying it, there’s no “mistake” about it. It reminds me way too much of…

I feel much the same way. On the other hand, I credit the Souls games (and, more specifically, the rapturous praise heaped upon them by the fan base) with helping me identify my own preferences in gaming. Which is, basically, pretty much exactly the opposite of the entire design philosophy of the Souls franchise.…

Pfft. Like you can talk, Superman. Mr. “look at me, I’m using a microphone in an airless vacuum.”