AI mass game decompilation sparks debate

Indie developer Popcar discusses a recent wave of AI-driven decompilation, where people use AI to mass-decompile existing games. This has produced many strange mashups between games and fueled preservation projects that let old games run on new hardware, often directly in the browser via WebAssembly. Popcar sees both upsides and downsides. On the plus side, game preservation benefits enormously: old games can be ported, modded, and enhanced, and are easier to access than ever. As console makers go all-digital and server shutdowns render games unplayable, players may finally truly own the software they bought. The downside affects the entire software industry: if AI can decompile games, it can decompile any software. Anyone could decompile someone else's software and use it freely, companies could steal competitors' work, and paid games or apps could be forcibly open-sourced without your knowledge. This risk isn't limited to old games; it applies to all software.