The official statement from Kineta and Xinil have been posted. The full post can be read here. Here are the excerpts.
We have been waiting for our owners, DeNA, to make a statement to the community. Unfortunately, Xinil and I feel it is not possible to wait any longer.
At approximately 4:00 AM PDT on May 24th, two things happened:
- all user accounts were frozen, requiring users to reset their password before they can log in
- the API – a communication tool for 3rd party apps – started returning 404s
This means that all user-developed applications stopped working, including:
Anime Recommendation Finder, Anime Recommendations, Anime Trakr, AnYme, Atarashii, BetterMyAnimeList, Cafeine, hinatachan, iMAL, Kamuy, MALClient, MALembed, MALgraph, mal-gtk, MALstats, MAL Updater, MAL Updater OS X, MyAniList, MyAnimelistRT, PocketMAL, Shukofukurou, Taiga, themes.moe, Trackma, and others that we may have missed which use MyAnimeList.
Hello everyone. I want to apologize for how terribly rushed and opaque these changes have been. Forcing a site-wide password reset is extremely time consuming for the users (as well as our staff) and springing it on the community without any explained security breach is a bit odd. As you also know, we have immediately terminated the MAL API service without providing a sufficient replacement. I’m deeply sorry for this action. Our developer community have been nothing but amazing over the near 10 years the API was available, and I had high hopes we’d be able to put out a completely rebuilt version before taking down the current service. Rest assured, we will absolutely provide a new API everyone can use, but I can’t speak to a release time yet (though it is most definitely in a beta phase.)
It is my personal goal to always put the community first and as the number one stakeholder in all projects we undertake. In that regard, I’m very disappointed we’ve failed to provide a great user experience. We will absolutely review the steps that were taken that led us to today and I am determined to improve our communication and community relations with DeNA and upper MAL management.
I hope you will continue to put your trust in us and find our overall service rewarding and useful. Thank you for taking the time to read our messages.
Lastly, if you need help accessing your account, please reach out to our customer service department or in cases were you cannot wait, me. The moderators are not able to provide account support.
What Now?
For the time being, MAL Updater OS X and the MyAnimeList service in Shukofukurou will not work. With 3.0.1, MyAnimeList support will be disabled. Until the MAL API comes back in some form, it will remain disabled and MAL Updater OS X will not work.
The Future.
MAL Updater OS X won’t go away as the MAL API will probably return in the future. Once the new Official MAL API returns, MAL Updater OS X 2.5 Alphas will most likely be the only builds that will work. We have to back port the new API back to the old versions. The new APIs will use OAuth, so no password will be collected.
What should I use for the time being?
If you are still angry with the decision DeNA made, you have a choice. You can switch to AniList or Kitsu. Shukofukurou currently supports AniList and Kitsu. While Hachidori only works with Kitsu, I am currently adding AniList support to Hachidori.
Also, an ability to export a MyAnimeList XML for an AniList or Kitsu list is being worked on in the future. This should allow you to import changes back from those sites into MyAnimeList for the time being.
If you have a donation license for MAL Updater OS X, you may request a free Hachidori Donation license by sending your invoice to ateliershiori@moyit.pro. If you don’t know what it is, you can lookup your order here.
Hachidori will now accept MAL Updater OS X (new style) license key. Make sure you are using MAL Updater OS X 2.4.5. In MAL Updater OS X, view the about window by clicking the MAL Updater OS X icon and select “About MAL Updater OS X.” You should see your license key. Use this license key in Hachidori to register it.
