What's up, RMers?

[DerVVulfman]

Well, there is a lot of back and forth about DonMiguel and RPGMaker.

You see, DonMiguel made claim he had permission to translate RPGMaker 2000 into English. At the time, it was produced by ASCII, Inc. who 'apparently' had no interest in having a western audience. This was assumed because they did not market either RM95 or RM2K outside of Japan. But shortly before ASCII's acquisition by Enterbrain in March 2004 (the year according to the Wikipedia of its acquisition) that all the issue with legal copyright of the translation has exploded.

Honestly, ASCII had issues in the 2000s.. ASCII becoming part of Unison Capital Partners by March 2002. But by May 28, 2002, it became part of Unison Media Partner and got delisted on the stock exchange by October. And by January 2004, its sale to Kadokawa (aka Enterbrain's Parent) was announced. What I find interesting is that the release of RPGMaker 2003 boasted the "Enterbrain" logo when the engine game out in 2002... but was not yet property of Enterbrain for two more years.

You can find articles in PCGamer that brandish the translation illegal, and dialogue suggesting a pending lawsuit here and there. If DonMiguel had been able to provide any documentation proving he had permission... um, Enterbrain could suck it. It actually wasn't until RPGMaker 2003 hit the (Japanese) market that the threat reared its head. I know some translated RM2K3 in Taiwan, South Korea, the States, Europe and etc... But Enterbrain never released an official Western Market edition until 2015.

Incidentally, Don's website is still up at: https://rpgmaker2000.narod.ru/ The last time it was update was two decades ago (OMG!) and has RM2K (and feasibly 2K3) tutorials and faqs. Not much in graphics though. But that's expected.