alt Hacker NewsI don't really understand the IP protection angle here: These browser ports are no more or less illegal that hosting a RAM file for use on an emulator, or pirated software in general. And sites hosting them are no harder or easier to shut down than existing piracy sites.
What's more interesting is the new ability to easily create ports of old games that let you play old games legally: Bringing your copy of the original's data files and playing on a modernised engine with high-resolution, unlocked FPS, bugfixes, etc. In the past couple of months, I've seen a bunch of vibe-coded ports of DOS games for which the source code was lost.
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VCFundedGenYer • today at 7:25 PM
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> I don't really understand the IP protection angle here [...] What's more interesting is the new ability to easily create ports of old games that let you play old games legally: Bringing your copy of the original's data files and playing on a modernised engine with high-resolution, unlocked FPS, bugfixes, etc. In the past couple of months, I've seen a bunch of vibe-coded ports of DOS games for which the source code was lost.
If you've noticed the obscene amount of ports, remakes, and remasters (most of which are done terribly) in recent years, it's obvious why certain people are pushing this as IP infringement. Companies were loving the fact that they could pull from a back-catalog of their PS2 games, get it compiling again, do some minor fixes to support modern widescreen/controllers/etc, maybe do some minor graphical enhancements, then resell a 20-year-old game for $60. Far less work than a new title, and far less risk since it has a built-in fanbase.
It's exploitative and shitty, to be clear, but it's understandable why some people are very upset about this.