this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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So computer games in general should not exist, because they rely on an OS that other people invested millions into?
The licence involves with the os, the tooling, the development environments explictedly allow for these things.
You can not be this fucking stupid can you?
If you make something you get to dictate how others use it, if you choose to have it be free and open that's your choice. Just as it is if you wish for it to be restricted. It's common fucking courtesy to not steal.
Modders cant make what they make with out the assets and game. They are using someone else's property.
For example thats the entire fucking crux of things like say OpenMW vs Tamriel rebuilt. One is a standalone product that doesn't reuse assets or has any dependencies on Bethesda assets. While the other reuses them all over the place.
OpenMW could charge for their product. It's worthless with out the game, but still is entirely a functional standalone thing. The other literally can't function with out someone else's assets.
You should be able to separate the general idea and whether we're talking just law or morals here. Sure, copyright law gives ridiculously broad control to the copyright holder. They can just outright go after mods in general and disallow them free or not too. I guess if your position is that modding should just not be allowed in general then that's at least consistent. Personally I think regardless of law things like reverse engineering and mods should exist at least in some form though.
Where is this theft you’re talking about?
And you can make mods that include 0 code from the original game. It’s actually not difficult. The fact that they modify the game in memory has no bearing on copyright.
Binary patching has been a thing in the emulator/rom scene for as long as I can remember precisely because it's a means to distribute mods without distributing IP the modder doesn't own. Some of the takes here are absolutely wacko.
Yeah, I’m not gonna lie this almost feels like astroturfing. Straight up piracy is seen as more favorable than a mod creator getting paid for their work, it’s nuts.