According to reports, Near, the developer of the excellent SNES emulator bsnes, has ended his life.
Near (also known as "byuu" and "Dave") tweeted last weekend to expose the cyberbullying and harassment he was subjected to:
Bullying, ridicule, and humiliation have been throughout my life, from the earliest elementary school memories to the present. These injuries are too deep to describe in words. I can only endure the torture of severe depression, and I was still in 4chan at the time.
But the Kiwi Farms forum brought more harassment, from attacking me with autism, escalating to attacking my friends, and trying to lure my friends to commit suicide, just to get my response. I have lost a best friend, and I feel responsible for it.
I can't stand it anymore. I tried everything, took all available drugs, tried many therapists, and tried to isolate myself from the world. But it didn't help at all. Every night I was full of panic, fear and worry.
I tried every possible way to make changes, just to stop this, but it never stops. Every few months, something new appears. I can't take it anymore.
I always try my best to be friendly to everyone, and I am happy to help, except that I’m a little weird on the Internet. Their horrible claims are completely unfounded. Nevertheless, if I hurt anyone or make anyone sad, I'm really sorry.
The Internet is not a game, but a real life. I am a real person, and the pain caused by these injuries is real. I have devoted my whole life to the Internet. I have no friends in real life, no other reason for existence, only this. And now I have nothing.
It's too late for me, but I pray that someone can do something about that website. Too many people are suffering, but no one seems to care, because we are all nobody on the Internet, and they know this. When good people do nothing, evil will triumph.
Please don't remember me because of this. Please remember everything I do-my work and dedication. Thank you very much for your kindness and support over the years. I'm sorry, but I love you very much.
Please don't hate me for that. I know that this will cause some of you to suffer, please understand that I have suffered more. I believe some people will take this as my fault, but it is not the case. They didn't have to do this, they could stop at any time, but they didn't.
If Joshua Moon gave me a little sympathy, I would stick to it, but he did not do so. I should not be treated like this.
Thank you all for your kind information. Please take care of yourself, I love you very much. Thank you for your support over the years. I am honored. I will miss all of you very much, but at least I can finally rest in peace.
(Note: Joshua Moon is the owner of Kiwi Farms)
The game forum ResetEra user Theorymon said that Kiwi Farms focuses on bullying individuals online:
Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forum, is a forum dedicated to bullying others on the Internet, especially tending to bully vulnerable groups. For example, Byuu (Near) was identified as a non-binary gender and was harassed. And this seems to be the main catalyst leading to this situation in Near.
After the tweet about this suspected suicide statement was posted, many Twitter followers of Near tried to contact Near, who lives in Japan, through the US Embassy. Later, through a mutual friend, security consultant and hacker Hector "Marcan" Martin, a friend of Near said anonymously that Near had passed away and disclosed more details of Near's cyberbullying. Martin later stated that he had communicated with the "police department responsible for the investigation", who confirmed that Near had died on June 27.
People who were moved by Near's works expressed their respect and memory on Twitter:
Develop Super Nintendo game emulator, Near is committed to retro game preservation and simulation
Near has done a lot of outstanding work in the field of retro game preservation and simulation. It has developed ares, bsnes and higan emulators, localized four games including Bahamut Lagoon and Der Langrisser, and participated in the development of various software such as amethyst. As many as 1,200 Super Nintendo games and circuit boards have been saved.
Among them, bsnes is a very smooth lightweight game emulator, also known as the Super Nintendo game emulator. The work of bsnes started in 2004, and the early version ran slowly on top hardware. Later, Near decapsulated the SNES chips to better understand them. At present, bsnes has become the gold standard of SNES emulators and can be implemented with the entire SNES library. 100% compatible. While focusing on developing its own simulator, Near also took time to provide assistance to the developers of Snes9x to improve the project.
In addition to emulators, Near is also the main force in the field of retro game preservation, and even bought the entire SNES/Super Nintendo console series in North America and Japan to ensure that ROMs are as realistic as possible. As an enthusiastic activist in the retro gaming community, Near is also one of the main voices that point out that companies such as Retro-Bit, Hyperkin, and Cyber Gadget illegally use non-commercial simulators in commercial products without permission.
In 2018, Near told Eurogamer:
Given that our work is free, we usually cannot challenge license violations, and I believe the violators are well aware of this fact. From personal experience, at any time, when a person makes a complaint, he will face strong opposition from a small part of the public, and there will definitely be fans of these products that demean you because you criticize these companies or products. Most simulator developers I know want to keep a low profile and choose to remain silent when their rights are violated. But Daniel and I (De Matteis, software developer, current leader of RetroArch and Libretro) are very outspoken, and that's why we are notorious in the community. This is sometimes very exhausting.
Near has also spent many years trying to make a perfect English localization version for Bahamut Lagoon, a Squaresoft Super Famicom RPG game that has never been released outside of Japan.
Near once mentioned to Vice the translation work of this game:
I tried it five times, and the reason for each restart was that I learned more and thought I could do better. The reason for the fifth attempted version is that I don’t think there is much to improve.
In addition, Near also translated Der Langrisser, another Super Famicom game that was not released in the West, and was considered by many to be the best translated version.
On his personal website, Near stated that he was driven by an "overwhelming drive to pursue perfection":
In terms of personality, I am INTJ-T. I prefer to stay in my own space and usually don't touch others first. I work alone, but when a friend is nearby to support me, I will be at my best. I tend to be overly sensitive and self-critical, and not very good at social etiquette, but I am doing my best to meet these challenges. I think honesty is more important than politeness, and reason is more important than emotion. I have a strong desire to understand everything, and an overwhelming drive to achieve perfection. This drive often drives me to achieve everything I can achieve.
I find that I will not be satisfied, unless I am solving a problem beyond the scope of my ability, I always seek to increase my knowledge and ability. You will find that I am always doing things because I don't like leisure time.
On the Twitter homepage of Near, we can see that on June 27th, he also released the v121 new version of the ares emulator, which was open sourced.
This may be his final contribution.
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