For 20 years ROMHacking.net was a community where people shared and worked on hacks and remixes of old games.
Now, citing burnout and trouble behind the scenes, the sites founder has announced its going dark.
ROMHacking.net will no longer accept new roms but all of the old work will be preserved.
(Photo by Becker & Bredel/ullstein bild via Getty Images)© A 3.5 floppy disc.
Its been a good near 20 year run, but for various reasons its time to wind things down.
We paved a much easier path for all of those that will come after us.
A rom is a digital copy of a video game cartridge.
Rom hacking is the process of digging into the code for that game and turning it into something else.
ROMHacking was a place where people could share and collaborate on these hacks.
In his post, Nightcrawler painted a picture of a founder burned out and tired of change.
The site became so busy with 24/7 use, endless queues, and an endless inbox.
Its a very different world than it was in 2005.
Copyright pressures increased dramatically with takedowns and legal burden.
Other people in the rom hacking community are telling a different story.
On X, community member Gideon Zhi said he sympathized with Nightcrawlers burnout.
By now you’ve probably seen thathttps://t.co/TiLKoimaVGis effectively dead.
Consequently it was costing its administrator hundreds of dollars/month.
After that came months of infighting about who would take over and how it would be done.
Nightcrawler commented on some of this in his own post, but was light on details.
We had a rocky phase 1, moving the downloads into their possession, Nightcrawler said.
When I went to startup phase 2, I discovered a most dishonest and hate filled group.
I learned that I had been dehumanized for a very long time.
My personal details had been given out.
My family has seen this and after discussion, we are immediately ceasing all related site operations.
Staff grew increasingly frustrated.
Days would pass without response from NC, Zhi said.
He refused to join the Discord to talk about solutions in real-time.
Did we vent in private?
Did we dox or threaten?
Fucking hell, no!
And frankly Im LIVID at even the suggestion that we did.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
