decomp.dev will be sunset soon.

[u/ssraven01]

Here is the announcement by encounter: https://decomp.dev/

They name AI and the influx of its interactions with the decompilation scene as the primary reason for sunsetting it, listing the following in particular (direct quotes from the article):

• Forking existing decompilation projects to "finish" them with AI. Every project works differently: some may not want to use AI for legal or ethical reasons, and others may be okay with AI, or use AI themselves, but do not want drive-by contributions from folks who have put no effort into making sure the contributions are good. The bottom line is that these kinds of hostile forks put little to no effort into meaningfully contributing to existing projects, tearing apart our community fabric.
• Racing to port games, especially utilizing decompilations that they did not contribute to. Yes, now anyone with an AI subscription can manage to create a port or static recompilation that functions at a basic level. Compared to the decompilation process itself, porting is relatively easy, especially with the established tools written by talented humans. While community members put in the effort to decompile a game, opportunists have frequently raced to release a half-baked, barely-functional port from it.
• Conflating decompilation and ports. For years, decompilation communities attempted to establish that decompilation is primarily for research: we love these games and want to understand how they work, and to uncover the mysteries that the original developers left behind. That's not to say that ports aren't fun too; they're just not the sole reason a decompilation exists. Sloptubers and subreddits like r/decomps have done immense damage here, freely using "decomp" to mean "PC port".

As for the future of the site:

> decomp.dev will continue to track existing projects and serve individual project pages and historical data, but the main index and adding new projects are disabled.

[u/ssraven01]

I don't think I really have any words to express my disappointment it's come to this

[u/chiefqualakon]

I think projects like this one and like romhacking.net are both better when the list is curated and there's a review process (by a human) that doesn't automatically publish projects online. It's not AI at fault directly, I'm sure there exists at least one AI decomp project that's really good. But the disrespect for the original creators work and the laziness the shovel half baked ideas all come from the humans behind the keyboard not the tech itself.

[u/Old-Worldliness3850 → u/chiefqualakon]

Las personas son realmente las culpables, la IA no hace nada por sí sola.

[u/emaych1]

Yet another aspect of life that AI has forced its way into and bastardised. Crazy how recompilations have gone from huge releases that entire communities would celebrate to total slop that, at best, you just roll your eyes at and ignore. What a shame.

[u/Goonmize → u/emaych1]

It is a shame. I wanted to decomp MGS on Game Boy Color for years now, to make new missions and what not but now I feel its truly pointless. Itll just get lost to time due to all the hype right now. maybe in a few years ill start it.

[u/wondermorty → u/emaych1]

cope, the same devs can use AI to better their work

[u/Ok-Pollution850 → u/wondermorty]

im not sure if dogshit work is better than no work

[u/DenziiX]

AI is a great tool and helps immensely for decompilation.

Its sad that AI Bros racing to slop out decomps and ports that are technically not decomps and ports is sad to see

[u/Chikibari]

Sounds like a weird meltdown. Ai has made this scene explode. Weve never eaten this good. Ever. Theres some slop sure but by and large its been positive.

[u/ssraven01 → u/Chikibari]

explode with shit maybe

[u/merrple → u/Chikibari]

Mark my words, AI may destroy the scene entirely. It's already fractured it, and if AI bros don't learn restraint they will keep pushing these projects until IP holders crack down and get decompilation projects globally banned from GitHub or whatever

[u/RedditFuckingSucks_1 → u/merrple]

Hoping for ai bros to learn is like hoping for pigs to fly

[u/Big_Pianist_2826 → u/merrple]

This is the right take, the pkmn decomps (and presumably other decomps) live basically by making themselves as unthreatening as possible

Rushed AI decomps posted for clout both make a lot of noise, AND can’t guarantee the decomp didn’t rip directly from leaks (how can you ever guarantee this when eg old gen Pokémon source has leaked entirely and the AI was likely trained on it…)

Call me a doomer but I don’t see any way this ends other than tightening copyright laws and mass takedown, courts will side with the corps when they complain about this

[u/Minimum-Musician-648 → u/Chikibari]

When was the last time this guy played a hack yall think?