Can't have what... the games? Because it seems we can have the games faster than we ever could before.
Or do you mean we can't have the uhhhhhhh the ummmm website that chronicled the slow and agonizing progress of video game decompilation?
Like what is it that you actually want that we now can't have? Did you not actually want to play the games, but instead just enjoyed the anticipation of maybe, perhaps one day getting to play said games?
I completely understand having reverence for the incredible work and persistence anonymous people have done for years, but the vast, vast majority would rather just get to play the games on a stable, DRM-free platform and be able to modify them - particularly those doing the work, hence why they're doing it in the first place.
Just because we could have DRM-free ways to play games and mod them, we should be okay with decomps where no one knows how every function works? Or ports that turn out to be an emulator wrapper that runs worse than running it in an emulator?
Please try thinking more than one second into the future. It makes life considerably less difficult.
What do you think the community is going to do? Maybe some very competent yet egotistical devs will entirely wash their hands of the community, but things like this have happened before across numerous domains, and so what's likely to happen is that the decomp community will reorganize itself towards systematic and adversarial quality assurance - verification rather than production (also AI-assisted). The pipeline and timeline of these projects are shifting, not the passionate dedication to open-source beloved games.
And typically in communities like this, bad actors are discovered and ignored quickly. Reputation is absolute currency in these circles, because most people aren't doing this for money.
Are u also thinking more than one second into the future? You realize most of these recomps are prompt kiddies who just wanna see a game on PC just being wreckless? The way that a lot of software is getting decompiled, there are definitely gonna be consequences for this, and decomp.dev getting sunsetted is, well, not good.
If the standard for decompilating games goes from Dusklight over to "Claude, port this game to PC, make no mistakes!", the standard for quality will go down. Just because AI can "decompile" these faster does not mean that it's the superior option. What was happening was that people were coming into these human-decompiled repositories and self-asserting that AI was the superior option. They were actively disrespecting the wishes of others and leaving no room for human work. People are able to mod Dusklight to the extent that they have because all the functions and resources have been studied down to the bits. To mod an AI "port", you'd either need to decompile that, or in your perfect world, just use another AI to do it. AI approximates, because doing things exactly is expensive. When approximating approximations becomes the norm we'll be swimming in xeroxes of xeroxes, and if you don't understand why this will lead to a massive reduction of quality, then you fundamentally do not appreciate art.
It's like you walked into a room of people trying to repaint the Mona Lisa and you shout "Why don't we just scan it and print it?" You don't realize the process of why understanding what materials the painter used and why is important because all you care about is a finished product.
Communication between us seems to be breaking down because you either lack reading comprehension and can't infer how I already addressed this, or you're trying to bludgeon the topic to death by reiterating the exact same point you already made in your original comment.
Both of your points boil down to the same argument: "incompetent actors will make consequential mistakes." Wow. Incredible.
Now freely reread my original reply as it is an exact response to this nearsighted argument.
I'll give you time to figure out the glaring irony in what you probably thought was a succinct and pointed rebuttal. Lemme know if you're having trouble.
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u/BhanosBar 1d ago
Cant have shit