As far as I'm concerned, any English story I help write that winds up in a patch containing only original intellectual content based on a translator's and hacker's work, becomes public domain the instant that patch is released. After that, people are going to do what they're going to do. There's no stopping it.
I'm just happy to use my writing skills for something I enjoy. Any money that derives from aftermarket products created in English, whatever amount would accrue to the value of a writer in the overall team, I would prefer see go to the original Japanese writer. It's his or her concept, after all.
Thamiel wrote:
Some of you guys might have seen some of my graphics work around your forums. Being brutally honest I have been approached by, and have worked for, a few different repro companies producing manuals, boxes, posters etc. Basically complete CIB packages. I've long been aware of the argument on both sides of the fence regarding the issue, yet was unable to come to a conclusion myself about what I supported. My solution to the issue was to work for "store credit" and not direct cash, so basically i'd complete a job and get a bunch of repros thrown at me to muck around with and enjoy.
I'm not really sure what my point is here actually haha, I know you guys put in immense amounts of time and effort making these hacks and you have my utmost respect for doing so. On the flip-side some of the projects I've worked on have required more than 40-50 hours of my time to complete and that's no small amount of effort either. For the last projects I worked on we even acquired art books and original SFC releases and had them translated. Just so we'd have great quality art scans to work from and decent text to use instead of the usual "use a game faqs walktrhough" rubbish. I dunno, definitely not trying to justify the practice but it salved my conscience a little to know that I was putting in so much more effort than the quick cash guys and putting something out that really felt like you could have picked it up from a shop as a kid.
In summary, it's the third day of 40 degree heat here and I can't even remember where I was going with this. Food for thought I guess.