Bilibili is like the geeky Chinese version of YouTube. The Helltaker community is very active there, so I used to peek in from time to time for fun. There are lots of unauthorized reuploads of my work, but because everything is flooded with Chinese and dealing with it is a hassle (my native language is Japanese), I had been ignoring them. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, so I didn’t really mind.
However, one day I found a video that was publicly sharing Patreon-exclusive information without permission.It’s the one I shared the other day.
I already knew this user from before and knew he was genuinely looking forward to Hellversus. Because the images he used came from a tier that’s Inferno or higher, I initially assumed he was supporting the project at that tier and decided to forgive him if he would just delete the video.
But the next day I learned that Patreon’s information had been leaked on a piracy site. When I checked with him again, it turned out he wasn’t a Patreon member at all.According to him, he didn’t have a payment method for Patreon such as PayPal, so he had been obtaining Patreon information through a “representative.” When I asked for that representative’s name, he said he didn’t know. At that point I became convinced he wasn’t telling the truth about anything—likely trying to cover up that he had taken the images from a piracy site. My anger kept rising.
In addition to the leak video, he had been using videos and images I uploaded to YouTube and Twitter to post—probably almost all of them—on Bilibili. I had known about this for a while and had looked the other way, but I told him I could no longer allow it and asked him to delete them all.
Even so, I still thought he was looking forward to the project and wondered if we could somehow reconcile. He didn’t seem to want to delete the videos (they had accumulated quite a lot of views), so as a final chance I asked him to support Hellversus officially through Patreon. Since he had just said he lacked a payment method, I figured registering with a service like PayPal might take time, so I gave him a one-week grace period. Less than an hour later, he contacted me to say he had joined Patreon. What was that about not having a payment method? Even then, I was still ready to forgive him. But that feeling vanished when I checked his Patreon registration details.
First, he chose the lowest tier—which by itself would have been fine. But there was a gift icon next to the amount. That means he joined using a gifted membership. Those are sent from one Patreon supporter to another—in other words, he signed up for free. And he scheduled a cancellation for one month later at the same time he joined. It was the bare-minimum, purely superficial “support” just to get out of the immediate situation. I felt no sincerity or remorse. My anger hit its peak.
Even then, I still had some willingness to forgive. As the very last step, I asked him again if he could sign up for the Inferno tier for just six months. That must have been extremely unpleasant for him, because he started explaining over and over that his videos weren’t monetized (which I had mistakenly assumed they were). In the end he got angry, saying, “I admitted my mistake and even supported you financially (he claims to have bought my merch in the past)—why are you humiliating me?” Give me a break. I’m the one who’s angry here. Below is the last message I sent him:
“It doesn't matter if you make money from the video or not. I'll refund the Patreon money you spent on me if you want. The important thing is that you've done something to make me this angry. Honestly, I think you're really looking forward to the project, and I don't think you had any malicious intent when you leaked the information. However, it's true that you've caused me trouble by publishing information obtained through illegal means without my permission.I don't want to waste any more time on this matter. I was hoping for a happy settlement for both parties, but it looks like that's not going to be easy. If you don't remove the video within 24 hours, I will take appropriate action.”
After 24 hours, I was planning to reveal his user profile on Twitter and explain in detail what he had done. But that would turn into a personal attack, and my followers would likely be frightened if they saw it. I really didn’t want to do that, so I silently prayed he would delete the videos.
I didn’t receive any reply from him, but a few hours later I confirmed that all of my reuploaded videos had been deleted from his account. With that, the incident was over.
It was extremely shocking to learn that Patreon had been hacked. Even more than that, it was deeply sad to discover that someone I thought was supporting me had actually been acting improperly. I used to secretly enjoy reading the comments posted under the reuploaded Hellversus videos on Bilibili. I can’t look at those anymore either.
There is one thing I did learn this time: I have many people who support me through fair means. Remembering that helps heal my anger and sadness. Thank you truly for your continued support. Thanks to all of you, I can keep developing this project.
Even though I should be prioritizing development, I ended up spending a lot of time on this issue. It was a pretty heavy ordeal, but I can’t stop. The goal is close, and I want to sprint to the finish. I will definitely deliver results within the year, so please stick with me a little longer.