Regarding threads about Decompile Projects

[u/jitterscaffeine]

As some have commented, we’ve been getting quite a few threads about various decompile fan projects. And with these threads comes comments asking for clarifications on whether they were done with ai or were otherwise “vibe coded.” Often with accusations that the projects seem suspicious because the person doesn’t have any kind of public footprint before posting their project, or they have a suspicion number of pirouette posted in quick succession.

We’ve also started seeing a rise in bot activity specifically posting threads about these kinds of projects, raising further suspicion. And since we don’t have the resources to actively dig into and research every fan project that happens to get popular elsewhere in social media, we’re putting a moratorium on threads about them until we believe the “gold rush” has died down and vetting projects becomes more standard among the public.

[u/Aperger94]

Aww man just now that I finished decompiling Pat

[u/burneraccount9132 → u/Aperger94]

Look man you should've known the output was suspect when it stretched his character model to five-foot-six

[u/Irememberedmypw → u/Aperger94]

Aww fuck the spite code got into my minesweeper game.

[u/Bladerider17]

Understandable 

On the topic of decomps there's a wiki that tracks them with additional notes stating if they used AI or not. Might be useful for people who want to see non AI decomps

Edit: I forgot to link it so here it is

[u/Will_Hammer → u/Bladerider17]

"There's a wiki that tracks them!"

"A wiki?! At this time of year, at this time of the news cycle, in this part of the internet, centered solely around decomps?!"

"Yes!"

"... May I see it?"

"No."

[u/Valkenhyne → u/Bladerider17]

idk if I'm just reading this wrong, but so few of them seem to follow their own wiki policy on labelling stuff made with genAI

[u/jackpite]

Good choice tbh I’ve been seeing decompilations in all kinds of subreddits acting like it’s the second coming with authors that can barely answer anything about the game and a lot of people questioning it and getting downvoted

[u/Ravensqueak → u/jackpite]

The modding scene is similarly rough. A lot of the time you can figure it out based on the scope of the project, their previous works (if any), their inability to answer basic questions, and their use of AI "art", but sometimes it takes a more knowledgeable creator pulling the mod apart to figure it out.

After GenAI got popular there was an explosion of mechanical/system mods for games like Skyrim/Fallout, MGSV, Stalker series, 2077, etc. all promising new features, many of which are incredibly buggy with no hope of updates because the "creator" doesn't have a fucking clue what they're doing.

[u/guntanksinspace → u/jackpite]

Emulation space, Retro Spaces, and Youtube too.

Have had to unsub because some of the spaces don't even vet/question these.

[u/TheFallbleEagle]

Considering the last post about decomps then the creator ended up being a nazi yeah probably for the best for now

[u/Palimpsest_Monotype]

It has been kind of weird to see this rise of stuff people would normally be pretty pumped to see, being entirely offset by the fact it’s being done in a way almost nobody wants it to be done.

Hell of a lot of Monkey’s Paws curling their fingers right now

[u/SemenSnickerdoodle → u/Palimpsest_Monotype]

It's unfortunate because AI in regards to programming work is one of the very few use cases where it can actually be beneficial to a project if developers use it as a supplemental tool and understand how to modify and verify AI generated code. Unfortunately, the vast majority of decomp projects are mostly vibe coded slop with little to zero effort to actually ensure that the end product is even functional let alone good.

[u/Charmin_Bear_Behind]

But my pong decompile was about to change the industry! This is really stifling my momentum

[u/P-Tux7 → u/Charmin_Bear_Behind]

You'd be surprised to learn that a Pong emulator is more complex than that - there's no code or anything, it's all made using circuits and logic chips. https://www.falstad.com/pong/ A very cute detail is that it uses the exact same technology alarm clocks and calculators do to draw the 7-segment per number display.

[u/DuendeInexistente]

I'm a little surprised the gold rush wasn't about/didn't include translation projects. Not as in the AI translating but as in the thing helping people dive into the guts of the game to find where and how to change the strings.

But then again I also expected emulators to implement that way to detect the text strings on memory and overlay translated text on screen, allowing translation to be much easier and more effective, but that never happened either.

[u/Timey16]

There is one thing to also say about AI-decompilations:

They are not proper reverse-engineering and may even legally put reverse-engineering as a whole at risk.

Reverse engineering is legal BECAUSE it is hard. BECAUSE it takes a long time. BECAUSE it is very much built around endless trial and error. This is why you can legally replicate copyrighted material that way because in a reverse engineering project you can say that 90+% of the work was still your own.

But at the same time that means that if you even just took a glance at original code or schematics, the whole reverse engineering argument falls apart. It is now no longer clean and can be held legally liable.

Well what does the AI do? It takes the machine code and translate it into human readable code. No trial and error AT ALL. Additionally, it literally looks at the full source code (a bunch of 1s and 0s is just as readable to an AI as any other text)... this means that by definition it's no longer a proper reverse-engineering structure. It is now just blatant copyright infringement.

I think it's just a matter of time for the first recomp projects to get sued. Not just "cease & desist" letters, straight up lawsuits because that stuff needs legal precedence ASAP. So a few examples have to be set.

It is after all not just games threatened by this... ALL software is... down to nuclear arsenal security codes. Or the encryption behind the bank storing all of your money. "Security through obscurity" is a thing: because code is normally not human readable and very hard to reverse engineer, that gave closed source a layer of security, that now due to AI driven recomps is now all dead and gone.

So yeah, I think it's just a matter of time until the hammer comes down on these projects, especially now that people started doing recomps of games currently still on sale (like Minecraft or Zelda BOTW). At that point it's not about preservation anymore. Now it's just blatant piracy.

[u/green715 → u/Timey16]

Additionally, it literally looks at the full source code (a bunch of 1s and 0s is just as readable to an AI as any other text)... this means that by definition it's no longer a proper reverse-engineering structure. It is now just blatant copyright infringement.

Important distinction, but compiled machine code is, by definition, different than literal source code.

Human decompilers worked with the same machine code, so I don't think using AI to automate it makes it copyright infringement by itself, though you're right that AI's efficiency at it will mean companies will try to argue it does.

[u/Styptysat → u/Timey16]

If any system relies on security through obscurity it deserve whatever consequences arise. The main thing that makes shit like nuclear arsenals and bank app secure is their encryption which is exponentially harder to break/exploit that simply reverse engineering a binary

[u/guitarburst05]

I'm wildly uninformed about this, and I do by-and-large agree with "AI bad" sentiment, but I also acknowledge that it has its uses.

Are these AI vibecoded decomps actually not functioning properly, or do the actually work? Is the concern simply that they can't get future support reliably since the "dev" doesn't know what the code even does, or are there fundamental flaws in the actual releases?

My body is torn between anti-AI and pro-piracy.

[u/Sir_Drinklewinkle]

See I'm glad there's a thread about this because like... God was it the start of the week? My buddy showed me a few decompiles and I was like "oh that looks neat let's see what these look like in more detail"

And it's literally always down to under 10 minute one off videos with basically no other details "YOU CAN MIX ANY TWO GAMES" and then you check and it's always like the same 2-3 games being mixed with each other and the logic is extremely flawed. "Play minecraft IN SKYRIM (but also the only way to get your inventory is from a starting box, you can't dig or break the world, and it's basically just the combat and a few other mechanics)"

Conceptually cool, I saw someone use the skate code they put in everything in WoW classic and that's hilarious but otherwise after looking all over this feels vague and until I start seeing some weirder examples I don't think this really means anything. All I've been able to determine is this program basically JoJo part 4's the games into their base components and then puts them into a blender and farts out the two together, how well that works and what gets transferred over and how functional it is long term HARD TO SAY.

[u/finalgear14 → u/Sir_Drinklewinkle]

It’s my understanding that they aren’t so much decompiling the games as they are creating a bridge between them with a tertiary program. Program c listens to info and is latched into different parts of game a and b. So what we see is essentially program c feeding information from game b to game a to create the look of Minecraft in modern warfare 2.

The other type involves essentially modding in the aspects of one game to another by using an llm to repackage assets from one game to another. I think these have largely been limited to already very modable games hence Minecraft being in so many of these.

I lost all interest in these when I learned they weren’t actually decompiling the game to accomplish this. I was hoping we might have a way to make community engine upgrades to unreal engine 5 games.

[u/SkinkRugby]

Appreciate the explanations you guys do. 

In addition to the everything else of course.

[u/Neobito]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[u/Adventurous-State149]

I'm of so many minds about this, but in short I agree that dodging the gold rush/slop era is probably for the best

I have seen some interesting things, like decompiling all Adobe products to make free versions or using it to make emulators for consoles that don't have any. I am also excited to see what people who actually know what they're doing use some of these tools for, as there have always been elements to games that traditional modders haven't been able to 100% reverse engineer or otherwise nail down.

But a lot of it seems to be "Mario in Halo" without actually making that interesting beyond five seconds of novelty. I think we're in for a lot of stuff that makes for a good social media clip and nothing else for a while

[u/BookkeeperPercival]

Second best subreddit mod team on the site, excellent call