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  • DrYakdryak@mstdn.science
    Oct 8, 2026, 8:02 PM

    @cwebber Video game "vibewashing" is very active in practice. (Modern Vintage Gamer did a video recently on that: youtu.be/mYZPHdKKMaI).

    A quick look on Quiver (quiverlauncher.com/) reveals quite a few recomps of Nintendo games, including big franchises like Mario and Zelda.

    That these aren't getting lawyer-bombed into oblivion is quite revealing in my opinion, as if it was somewhat in the interest of by corporations that "vibewashing" remains legal.

    [...]

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Replies

  • DrYakdryak@mstdn.science
    Oct 8, 2026, 8:09 PM

    @cwebber [...]

    For sure lots of companies have heavily pushed for using genAI for coding in the name of "efficiency", and might be afraid of all that extruded code to suddenly become an unknown liability (blaming the human coder as crumple zone will only go that far)

    [...]

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  • DrYakdryak@mstdn.science
    Oct 8, 2026, 8:10 PM

    @cwebber [...]

    I suspect that lots of big corporations are *actually relying* on chat bots to extrude license-washed version of libraries that they incorporate in their product and know that pushing against vibewashing could backfire badly.

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  • LinebylineLinebyline@mastoart.social
    Oct 10, 2026, 1:44 AM

    @dryak First time I've seen the phrase "crumple zone" used for that accountability sink position. I love it.

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  • Andy L.apLundell@timeloop.cafe
    Oct 8, 2026, 8:38 PM

    @dryak @cwebber It may well be that they're nervous about setting a court precedent they don't like.

    They'll wait until they have a case they're 100% sure is a slam-dunk so that then they can reference that ruling in all future lawsuits.

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  • Twilit PJBpjb@sharkey.slugcat.systems
    Oct 8, 2026, 9:04 PM

    @dryak@mstdn.science @cwebber@social.coop I think it's far more likely they just don't care, because emulators already exist anyways. I don't think there's been any precedent for Nintendo taking ports down as long as you need to provide the ROM yourself. Projects like Ship of Harkinian have been fine for years and widely covered in press, so I'm sure they're aware.

    Of course, that is merely an observation and I'm sure that if Nintendo did start paying lawyers to submit C&D's, everybody would just scram like ants. Who knows if something might change their mind.

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  • Twilit PJBpjb@sharkey.slugcat.systems
    Oct 8, 2026, 9:13 PM

    @cwebber@social.coop @dryak@mstdn.science I mean yeah, I'm aware they went after Switch emulators. But unless I missed something, I don't think they've gone after anything else yet?

    But yes, perhaps they're just waiting for the right time to     really dunk on the scene and make an actual legal precedent. Who knows.

    EDIT: wait no I just remembered. They definitely have gone after homebrew dumping tools etc for the Switch too. Sigh.

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  • DrYakdryak@mstdn.science
    Oct 8, 2026, 9:22 PM

    @pjb @cwebber
    Nintendo also went against Dolphin (Wii & Gamecube), Citra (3DS). And that's just the recent ones, and only emulators (we won't even mention fan-games).

    They simply don't like the concept of people enjoying stuff how they like instead of the very narrow way-to-enjoy that Nintendo wants to impose as the only authorised one. They consider such "unauthorized fun" to be a violation of their IP rights and they have the lawyer warchest to fight on that hill.

    [...]

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  • DrYakdryak@mstdn.science
    Oct 8, 2026, 9:24 PM

    @pjb @cwebber [...]

    Nintendo remaining silent in the light of AI-assisted decomp/recomp is very fihsy - as if they feared even more the impact that outlawing vibewashing could have.

    (Evermore so when you look at their "emulators for me, not for thee" stance.)

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  • Twilit PJBpjb@sharkey.slugcat.systems
    Oct 8, 2026, 9:28 PM

    @dryak@mstdn.science @cwebber@social.coop I suspect the worst is yet to come as my personal observation is that the phenomenon is still very recent, and all the videos of slop ports running I can think of have been based off mostly-human-made decomps. Though maybe I haven't been paying enough attention at that.

    (Claude, take the port and the Aurora compat layer and smash them together, keep fixing crashes till I see the Wind Waker title screen)

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