Hello,

I was looking for seasoned game dev advice regarding a little project I plan to embark.

Preface: A game on Steam was much better years ago. The dev team was in major debt and decided to completely change the game by making it more profit oriented. The overall fanbase complained about the changes, but the devs ignored all. In the end the devs got out of debt AFAIK, but the former game was long gone. And based on recent feedback, a good chunk of the veteran community is still (understandably) angry.

And now: I found the former game through SteamDB's manifest files, and learned how to deobfuscate and reverse engineer it. The game needs to be reworked in order to play offline. The end goal is to revive the game version as playable again, even if for offline play only, via a free downloadable file available for anyone.

Here's my question. The game's code & assets do belong to the developers despite being nothing that couldn't be fully replicated by any capable programmer. To avoid any liability concerns, I figured this could be done by making the game generic – removing any unique identifiers signalling the developers made it.

Or all the original content could just be left as-is.

TL;DR From what I've found/read, reverse engineering & making a dead game version playable again for no monetary gain makes it inherently legal. But I wanted to know your perspective.

@fleabay Should I reword that part in order to qualify for actual advice here?

If you have a take on the legality regarding reverse engineering depreciated game versions to render them playable again, I'd really like to hear it.

nr_clark said:

The end goal is to revive the game version as playable again, even if for offline play only, via a free downloadable file available for anyone.

This sounds like piracy.

nr_clark said:

The game's code & assets do belong to the developers despite being nothing that couldn't be fully replicated by any capable programmer. To avoid any liability concerns, I figured this could be done by making the game generic – removing any unique identifiers signalling the developers made it.

There-there. Speaking as a programmer, please don't overestimate capable programmers. :-) This is likely a product that has taken years to develop and maintain up until the version you like, and on the top of that, it likely has content not produced by programmers. I don't think trying to hide that it was reverse-engineerd by stripping it of its assets is going to do you any favours. The source is still not yours.

I think the most honest/good thing would be to contact the current publisher about if there was any way this could be done non-commercially.

Alternatively, you could do a clean write of your recipe steps and spread it to the whole community for them to individually reverse-engineer. I do not condone this at all, but it's a possibility.

Then again, IANAL. I'm sure the Game dev lawyer (forgot his username) and Mr. Sloper will have some more qualified input on this.

@SuperVGA Your insights are much appreciated! Yes you're right. Despite the focus being on a version the developers no longer care for, the goal does sound like piracy. I'm all for any legal pro's taking a look at this, at least before deciding which step to proceed.

nr_clark said:

@SuperVGA Your insights are much appreciated! Yes you're right. Despite the focus being on a version the developers no longer care for, the goal does sound like piracy. I'm all for any legal pro's taking a look at this, at least before deciding which step to proceed.

No problem! I hope you can land a solution that satisfies your goal without getting yourself into any legal trouble.

(I was thinking of VideoGameAttorney and PressStartLegal on reddit. Don't know if it's OK to link, otherwise I'll gladly remove)