Leaderboard

Yeah, this took me much longer than I was supposed to, so here is the info put together: So, remember when KLab announced they were making a Touhou gacha game that turned out to be an asset flip of a bootleg game that stole assets and plagiarized from other games? Well, it's back and it's releasing today. On March 31st 2022, a new account for a Touhou Mobile game, Touhou Arcadia Record announced that they obtained a license to make a Touhou mobile game, and they were starting pre-registration. With the announcement came a website, and at the very bottom of the website, people found something that made this prospective mobile game less than appealing. Namely that it was being published by KLab, who just one year ago announced the bootleg game, Danmaku Gensou. Speaking of which, whatever happened to that game and the developer, Dobala games? No announcement of cancellation, no news of updates or anything, it's just gone, and one year later they now have this new game that's also far enough in development to release 4 months later. Whatever happened to that old one, due to that incident, this new game, Arcadia Record, was given a lot of scrutiny by fans. And they found some of its activities suspicious. First, they found that the website was engaging in meta tag abuse, adding tags like Danmaku Kagura, Lost Word, and even Dungeon Dive to the meta tags, presumably as an attempt to increase their search engine rankings. They updated this after being called out on it. They also used Unknown X's "What is Touhou" explanation, completely copy & pasting the description on Unknown X's for their own website. They updated this after being called out on it. And most famously, they gave themselves the abbreviation 東方アルレコ (Touhou AruReco), which just happens to be the abbreviation used for Alstroemeria Records (of Bad Apple fame). They also hired Alstroemeria Records to compose a song for their announcement PV. This, along with their meta tag abuse, and the fact that they were backed by KLabs, made people theorize that they were trying to use Alstroemeria Records' name and abbreviation to boost their own popularity, since their website and game to appear on searches for the circle. They updated this after they got called out on it. During Reitaisai , no less. Now they go by 東方アルカ (Touhou Aruka). Either way, this shady image stuck to them. It didn't help that when they showed some of their assets off, people noticed that they look pretty familiar. As if it was just the assets of Danmaku Gensou with a fresh coat of paint. (And Danmaku Gensou itself was also just a bootleg game renamed into a non-bootleg game). Sure enough, when the closed beta was released, it was pretty obviously, just the old bootleg game with a new coat of paint. On the left is a video of the old bootleg Touhou game, on the right is footage from the Touhou Arcadia beta. So what happened here? Honestly I can't really say 100% for certain. My theory is that KLab found themselves in hot water and saddled with a license that they can't use. So they just decided to take the game that Dobala Games already had and gave it to a company that was willing. They were a bit more careful this time around though. For one thing, KLab themselves made 0 announcement of this. No press release, no Gematsu or Famitsu article, nothing. The only thing that tells you that KLab is involved at all is the trademark at the bottom of the site. Pretty weird for a game that was supposed to be releasing soon. What's more, they also commissioned a bunch of circles to make tracks and PVs for them, to make themselves look better. They also didn't announce themselves to the world this time, keeping everything in Japan. Time will tell if their efforts were actually successful. The Youtube Videos on the games haven't exactly been positive. [Small update] More oddities about the game. The Google Appstore link mentions Dobala in it. This is despite the fact that Arcadia Records is by Damo Games, and Dobala games was the developer of the old one. Also, their Wonderful World PV has a peculiar lack of UM characters, despite UM having already been released for over a year by the time it was released. Even accounting for production time, surely they could've added 2 extra images showing the UM masterminds. It really makes me think that KLab did find themselves down a good chunk of their capital, having already commissioned several circles, with nothing to show for it, so they just decided to release Arcadia Records anyways, despite all the plagiarism behind it. I shoukd clarify that what Izm trying to say from this one is that it's just more signs that this was actually made for the Dobala Games one instead of for Arcadia Records. More signs that ArReco is just a reskin of that bootleg game. It's less a "they didn't feature UM thing, how dare they", and more "why didn't they?". It looks very much like this animation was completed a long time ago. Because it's very conspicuous to cut off at 17 when considering what the PV is about. Originally, the person made another thread about the game back in April, which further expands the discussion on the game I'm sure everyone has seen the recent news of KLab and a Dobala games making an "officially licensed" touhou game. I'd like to point out a few pieces of information regarding this company, as well as clarify what officially licensed means here. First, let's start with the company itself. Some of you may be excited of the prospect of playing a Touhou Side-scrolling shmup game on mobile. However, I'd advise getting excited about this one, as the developers behind this game have a checkered history of plagiarism. As seen in the tweet below, back in 2018, they already made a game that ripped off designs from Touhou, Azur Lane, and GBF. In some cases, straight up using the same asset. More details can seen in the following article https://bilibili.com/read/cv1649004/ You can also see an example of the gameplay in the following video, featuring Hakurei Maiden, Star Wizard, Big Fairy, Scarlet Overlord, Hong Meiling (spelled differently), and Frost Fairy. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Tp4y1s77D. And if you think that was egregious enough, if you look at that boss battle and compare it to the screenshot in the Gematsu article, you'll notice a few similarities. As seen in this tweet. https://twitter.com/Doki2_yumoti_ch/status/1386598456756629506 In other words, they've not only plagiarised Touhou in the past, they're currently taking that pirate game, flipping the assets, and selling it as a new officially sanctioned game. The game itself can still be found right here. https://appadvice.com/app/e9-a3-9e-e5-a4-a9-e5-b0-8f-e9-ad-94-e5-a5-b3-e5-85-a8-e6-b0-91-e5-8a-a8-e4-bd-9c-e5-8d-a1-e7-89-8c-e6-89-8b-e6-b8-b8/1492900654 So, you might be thinking, "how could ZUN officially sanction this"? Well, here's the thing. ZUN is very hands off when it comes to Touhou related stuff. A lot of the times, when companies want to make merchandise or products, they don't go to him, they go to his legal team. There have been a few "officially licensed" game here and there, such as Lost Word, and Dungeon Dive, these are all officially licensed in a sense that they've talked to ZUN's legal team, and gotten an okay from them. They have not gotten directly involved with ZUN in any way. When it comes to official games that are actually part of the series, for now, that's only the numbered games, the collaborations with Tasogare Frontier, and some parts of the Seihou series. anything else is just considered a derivative work, regardless if it's made by a company. Now, back to the new game. I hope anyone who was interested in it out give it a second thought and not give the game your attention. I believe what they're doing undermines the effort and love that every other Touhou creator pours into their works. As well as being insulting to fans who were expecting a quality game. I hope that this thread has enlightened you in regards to the situation. To close with, here are a few more threads showing the extent of Dobala Games' asset flipping and plagiarism. https://t.bilibili.com/h5/dynamic/detail/517856430361073125 Reading this, especially the last part, has raised me some questions. Particularly on the legal team part. Could this mean ZUN does not really have any actual power over what is going on, and the legal team is doing everything behind his back? It only remains to be seen what will happen next.

Vietnamese person here, and honestly, if there's anything of a Touhou community here, it's definitely thriving. For once, we do take precedence in our fandom. Fangames made by some members in our community, a hefty amount of cosplayers and in general, fans alike. I do take hope into seeing us thrive more haha, and I guess we are still strong in hands.