Friendly reminder that RetroArch devs alongside KiwiFarms harassed and bullied Near/Byuu to suicide.

RetroArch devs literally had an IRC channel dedicated to shitting on Near. Yes, they absolutely share the blame.

@maddy it really pisses me off that the emulation community at large hasn't made an alternative to retroarch, especially because for many, many platforms it's pretty much the only option if you want a remotely tolerable experience when gaming

@maddy f*ck, i did not know this. that story always makes me so sad

@maddy do you know if there's anything written down online anywhere about the complicity of the retroarch devs specifically? i want to read more about this

@eri

https://retroarchleaks.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/byuu/ RA IRC logs going over Byuu hate central

An ex-libretro dev bragging about posting a dox list that was a major source of stress to Near.

https://www.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/o9x4r8/near_byuu_is_a_programmer_who_was_bullied_to_the/

While trying to dig up sources, I also found rumblings of the Duckstation dev halting development due to harassment from RA devs.

I’m honestly having trouble trying to back this up, but I remember hanging around on socials when the news broke, and I saw some very damning things. I wish I saved shit. I hope that the RA devs and community have become a lot less toxic since those days, but I don’t have high hopes.

@maddy out of all of the types of software, why is it ALWAYS emulators that have shit devs?

@det The fact that there has been development time wasted on emulation ‘cores’ exclusive to RA…

@det what's with the asterisk if you don't mind me asking?

@det also. Even in middle school I thought retroarch was just tacky garbage. So thanks for giving me an actual reason to hate it

@maddy
I didnt know their death nor retroarch's involvement, wow.
Never really used retro arch before, dont think i will now.

(do you have some proof about this btw)?

@maddy that incident makes me so sad. I suffered depression and overcame before.

@maddy I'll keep pushing on no matter what transphobes and the like do to me, and I dedicate it partially to Near

@maddy suggestions for alternatives?

@sleepybisexual Basically, standalone emulators wherever possible. Unfortunately a lot of talented devs have wasted time developing ‘cores’ that only work with RA.
I’m unaware of any other AIO solutions.

@maddy Yeah I’m in the process of moving my RetroDECK Linux box to standalone emulators now.

@maddy yeah. all the all in ones seem to be based on ra. why does every other emulator person suck this hard.

@maddy @sleepybisexual

(i use emulator apps themselves like snes9x and PPSSPP but)

but there is also libretro-compatible Lemuroid (but [ime] it loads games very slowly, and also youd need an unlocked phone to import saves in it, cause for some reason it stores them in /data )

and for pc theres @alice@mk.nyaa.place;s HighScore, but its still in pre-release, so installing it is

@lystopad @sleepybisexual @maddy highscore is not using libretro fwiw

@sleepybisexual @maddy @lystopad also pc -> linux specifically, I do not have support for anything else

but otherwise: if you want to avoid retroarch for ethical reasons, avoid libretro too - it’s the same exact people

@maddy Wtf?!

Is there some other source for this? So I can keep something to archive and use later if needed.

@Soblow @maddy https://app.wafrn.net/fediverse/post/e70f79b1-e789-4d15-95ae-ce8e47791545

@blahajinc_ Oh, thank you...

Replies didn't federate so I didn't see this

@maddy @eri the only context in which I’ve heard of duckstation before is that it illegally relicensed from the GPLv3 to CC BY-NC-ND in 2024