my position on the Toby Fox Situation:
this is an interesting lens to analyze the production and distribution of video games and culture, especially with regard to the USA's language imperialism. but it is not special.
the reason it's "special" is because Toby Fox enjoys a reputation among "leftist" gamers and fandom that other gamedevs who are much more openly rancid U.S. right-wingers (like FNAF Guy) don't.
everyone feels like they are on friendly terms with Toby Fox (once you notice we call him "Toby", i.e. first-name basis, you can't unsee it) because he's creative, progressive, polite, funny and successful. but this is not a reason to trust/expect him to be politically conscious.
now, it's true that this also reveals a lot about fandom racism and people's ability to polarize themselves, often joining the side of the property-owning U.S. millionaire to "defend" him from the global south.
but on the other hand, the people who side "against" his translation decisions are either clearly elated to have a reason to hate on this beloved cinnamon roll (because he's too progressive or not enough). and importantly, to have a reason to indulge petty liberal discourse about individual product consumption/production choices. some of that discourse is openly racist and reactionary, but some is painted under the colors of anti-imperialism and anti-racism.
notably though, i think people with solid anti-imperialist politics made the mistake of extending them into a moral framework here, as if it's the U.S. American bourgeois artist's responsibility to make his (quality)slop available to the global south. this is not a very coherent position. in fact it would be less appealing, but equally coherent to argue we should prevent U.S. games and culture from dominating the world further, and the language barrier must remain to prevent this!
in the end it's nice to be able to participate in the dominant U.S. culture and consume their exports, yes. but that should be a personal struggle. to integrate this into the class struggle is to slip on the banana peel of assimilationism! (of course, blanket rejection of all U.S. cultural production would be a form of reaction, and a mistake as well.)
i think it's evident that Toby Fox's real position is "well i don't wanna! and you can't force me to make art the way you want!", which is his only coherent and defensible position. but he can't say that openly, he's a non-confrontational guy, he wants to be loved and forgiven by his fans in Latin America. so instead he makes mediocre factual claims about game translation and development, which (true or false) just so happen to align with the status quo of culture and language imperialism.
cue, of course, the sound of someone stepping on a rake.
so what now? (this leads to my main point and only real political position on this matter, which i mentioned in a previous post.)
we can argue about the artist's right to create how he wants or the consumer's right to have culture accessible to them, but in any case Toby Fox cannot choose without betraying either his values about "artistic integrity" or his values about "being niceys to fans".
the thing is, these are not opposite values. they are only in conflict for a very specific reason: because people who aren't Toby Fox are barred from making his cultural production accessible. because he reserves that right for himself, and no one else, in the first place. i am of course talking about a legal barrier and a legal right, made into tangible forces because they're backed by cops, lawyers, state violence: copyright law.
Toby Fox finds the responsibility of translating his games unbearable and crushing, but he will not relinquish his exclusive right to do so. he will not relinquish his power to destroy fan translators with a lawsuit the moment he stops feeling Niceys. say, for example... because they've started seeking a fair wage for this unpaid labor. getting paid for real work performed to transform his intellectual property.
the real issue at play is that fan translations are uncompensated work, and this work can never be fairly funded or compensated because of copyright. the fundamental inequality is the implicit threat of a C&D and lawsuit hanging over the head of anyone who might attempt this.
it took Toby a long time to rein in Materia Collective after they proved ruthlessly overprotective of his intellectual property. would Toby pull the equivalent of Nintendo stealing Gary Bowser's wages for life? maybe not, but does anyone want to find out? he certainly has the wealth and goodwill to get away with it, if he doesn't feel merciful.
so, fan translations are the only option. but also, they must be limited in number, quality, and development speed, since they have to be unpaid work, because receiving fair wages for this work is always unsafe.
and Toby could change this and make it safe! for example by releasing Undertale/Deltarune's dialogue files under CC-BY-SA. but he won't. with that decision he has, knowingly or not, followed in the footsteps of every bourgeois artist before him, and manufactured this entire nonsense moral quandary and the various rakes he keeps stepping on!
this is the lesson we should be drawing from this situation, all in all. your artistic integrity, making your work accessible to fans, your class interests as a bourgeois millionaire: you can pick two and only two.
Mr. Fox, if you're reading this, i'm sure this situation is stressful to you. it doesn't have to be. relinquish this small part of your intellectual property rights, and you will be reincarnated as a lotus flower. <3
