AI is mass decompiling games: a preservation boom and a software-industry threat
Simon Willison · rss · 2026-10-15
Simon Willison highlights indie developer Popcar's piece on the wave of AI-powered game decompilation.
Positives: a boom in game preservation projects getting old games running on new hardware (often in-browser via WebAssembly), plus weird mashups between existing games. With consoles going all-digital and servers shutting down, players may truly own the software they bought.
Negatives: anyone can decompile any software and use it freely — competitors can steal code, and paid games or apps can be open-sourced against their owners' will. The concern extends far beyond old video games to the entire software industry.
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