alt Hacker News> It really depends on your perspective of what the point of the hobby is. Were decomps/recomps a hobby because people wanted to make sure their old games could run on modern hardware and be extended with mods etc., or were they a hobby because people enjoyed the actual process of using Ghidra and reverse engineering by hand, and the decompiled game was just a side effect?
I think your question would make sense if these were the only two reasons. Someone who just wants to make sure their old games can run would see these tools as a good thing. People who just enjoy reverse engineering by hand wouldn't care this exists, or maybe even, a helpful tutor.
So perhaps then, the sentiment being as negative as it is, is revealing something about the hobby: that many participants, considered the metagame of being the first to do it, to be "smart enough" to have figured it out, the "street cred" if you were, is what they are lamenting, but they just either lack the words, or aren't being honest with themselves.
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It is a lot of gatekeeping involved for sure. As a lifelong musician, who probably spent a few thousand hours to learn piano, guitar, drums and music production, I was shocked when people could produce reasonable sounding music with a mouse click and a budget of cents instead of endless dedication and a lot of money. I felt totally devalued and stripped of my „street cred“ to stay with your terms.
> So perhaps then, the sentiment being as negative as it is, is revealing something about the hobby: that many participants, considered the metagame of being the first to do it, to be "smart enough" to have figured it out, the "street cred"
This is a very ingenerous interpretation.
I am a hobby hiker. My mountain hikes are so easy that basically anybody could do them: no street cred involved, it’s not even worth to speak about them. But it is important to me that most goals are only reachable by walking and putting in the effort: if a company offered a 20$/mo service that brings subscribers to the endpoint, carried in a luxury litter by robotized carriers, I would feel that my hobby has been devoided of sense.