18 ms·

Why don't any of these major emulator teams build and release anonymously?

Eiim 2y ago
You can still be sued. At that point, you either: a) defend yourself as normal, while attempting to maintain anonymity (difficult & doesn't solve anything) b) let the case go to default judgement (for likely an enormous amount of money) at which point Nintendo has every reason to try to track you down in real life, and can use the courts to help them do so. Hope you were really, really thorough about your anonymity.
- bitcharmer 2y ago
  How do you sue someone that is anonymous?
  - gaganyaan 2y ago
    OpSec is hard. The Silk Road guy was anonymous, up until he wasn't.
  - Eiim 2y ago
    File a lawsuit against a John/Jane Doe defendant(s) and describe who the defendants are, e.g., the people who code and maintain the emulator. Maybe a little harder than if you had the names but not by a lot.
    - Eiim 2y ago
      I should say: the real difficulty is service, but if there's any way to get in contact with you, there's at least a chance it will be accepted as good service. There was famously a recent case where a defendant known only by a Bitcoin address was served by sending a transaction with an attached message to that address.
archargelod 2y ago
Because making an emulator takes a lot of work. And emulator devs want some compensation for this work - be it money (in form of donations) or a status that could help them gather followers or even land a job.
giancarlostoro 2y ago
It can be a resume piece. Having been in these communities (server emulation instead of console) you find some insanely bright developers in them. A lot of them don't have a formal education background, but are willing to build out well thought out pieces of software. You just have to do the research on them if they tell you this is who they are, a lot of the times you can find out plenty about how they code and design things out in the open. I'd probably almost always hire such a dev if their code seemed good, and I knew they cared about the quality of their code. Having been involved in those communities though I do know there are awful devs who don't care about what anyone says "my code aint broken" types who never give credit when you help them either (reputation / respect matters more when you're coding for free in some of these communities).
- caminante 2y ago
  Not making sense. These anon devs can still have socials. Their resume is public, and you can reach them without revealing their identity.
  - antiframe 2y ago
    Do they expect a company to believe them when they say "Yes, that anonymous social profile is actually me, John Emu maker. Really." Then if they proove it, by logging in and posting a known sentinel for example, do they expect everyone on that interview loop to keep their secret? Companies generally don't take anonymous credentials.
    - caminante 2y ago
      You're arguing with the parent, not me. "How does someone break the circularity of building a resume and staying anonymous for legal employment?"
    - gamepsys 2y ago
      Even if the anonymous developer submitted the resume, they are giving the employer the power to dox them. There is a lot of trust there.
HideousKojima 2y ago
If you want Patreonbux for your work it has to be tied to a real person (or a real legal entity which is tied to real people)

Eiim 2y ago

You can still be sued. At that point, you either: a) defend yourself as normal, while attempting to maintain anonymity (difficult & doesn't solve anything) b) let the case go to default judgement (for likely an enormous amount of money) at which point Nintendo has every reason to try to track you down in real life, and can use the courts to help them do so. Hope you were really, really thorough about your anonymity.

bitcharmer 2y ago
How do you sue someone that is anonymous?
- gaganyaan 2y ago
  OpSec is hard. The Silk Road guy was anonymous, up until he wasn't.
- Eiim 2y ago
  File a lawsuit against a John/Jane Doe defendant(s) and describe who the defendants are, e.g., the people who code and maintain the emulator. Maybe a little harder than if you had the names but not by a lot.
  - Eiim 2y ago
    I should say: the real difficulty is service, but if there's any way to get in contact with you, there's at least a chance it will be accepted as good service. There was famously a recent case where a defendant known only by a Bitcoin address was served by sending a transaction with an attached message to that address.

archargelod 2y ago

Because making an emulator takes a lot of work. And emulator devs want some compensation for this work - be it money (in form of donations) or a status that could help them gather followers or even land a job.

giancarlostoro 2y ago

It can be a resume piece. Having been in these communities (server emulation instead of console) you find some insanely bright developers in them. A lot of them don't have a formal education background, but are willing to build out well thought out pieces of software. You just have to do the research on them if they tell you this is who they are, a lot of the times you can find out plenty about how they code and design things out in the open. I'd probably almost always hire such a dev if their code seemed good, and I knew they cared about the quality of their code. Having been involved in those communities though I do know there are awful devs who don't care about what anyone says "my code aint broken" types who never give credit when you help them either (reputation / respect matters more when you're coding for free in some of these communities).

caminante 2y ago
Not making sense. These anon devs can still have socials. Their resume is public, and you can reach them without revealing their identity.
- antiframe 2y ago
  Do they expect a company to believe them when they say "Yes, that anonymous social profile is actually me, John Emu maker. Really." Then if they proove it, by logging in and posting a known sentinel for example, do they expect everyone on that interview loop to keep their secret? Companies generally don't take anonymous credentials.
  - caminante 2y ago
    You're arguing with the parent, not me. "How does someone break the circularity of building a resume and staying anonymous for legal employment?"
  - gamepsys 2y ago
    Even if the anonymous developer submitted the resume, they are giving the employer the power to dox them. There is a lot of trust there.

HideousKojima 2y ago

If you want Patreonbux for your work it has to be tied to a real person (or a real legal entity which is tied to real people)