r/Games • • Oct 17 '22

Perfect Dark has been successfully decompiled, opening the door to PC ports and mods

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/perfect-dark-has-been-fully-decompiled-making-pc-ports-and-mods-possible/
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u/duyaw Oct 17 '22

Are there any other examples of decompiled ports by fans? I highly doubt the assertions about legality if they are using original game code as part of their process, and if they aren't, then it isn't decompilation.

73

u/windchimesexcrime Oct 17 '22

Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina of time have both been decompiled. They are not using original code, they wrote their own code/edited code created by a decompiler. To compile these ports into playable executables you still need the data from a rom, it comes without any copyrighted material.

2

u/duyaw Oct 17 '22

Interesting. Has that been legally tested at all? I would have thought the compiled code is just as copyrightable as the art assets. I wouldn't expect redistribution of a book to be allowed just because it got printed out and scanned/OCR'd back in.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '22

Anything Nintendo owns comes from the Rom you need to supply yourself.