For 20 years, ROMHacking.net has been a community where people shared and worked on hacks and remixes of old games. Now, the site’s founder has announced that he is shutting down the site, citing burnout and behind-the-scenes troubles.
However, all is not lost, as plans are in place to archive everything on the site to the Internet Archive, so while ROMHacking.net will no longer accept new ROMs, all of your older creations will be preserved.
“After nearly two decades of operation, for a variety of reasons, it is time to close the doors. The site has largely accomplished its original goals and far exceeded them,” said site founder Nightcrawler in a post on the site. “We’ve made great strides in legitimizing ROM hacking and elevating it from an underground, dark web-like material to something mainstream and acceptable. We’ve paved a much easier path for all who come after us.”
A ROM is a digital copy of a video game cartridge, and ROM hacking is when you dig into the code of that game and turn it into something else. The Legend of Zelda: Gods of the Tri-Force 2 and Super MetroidAn unofficial sequel to a game like Advance Warsand countless other versions Super Mario World The levels have been completely overhauled.
ROMHacking was a place where people could share hacks and collaborate. In his post, Nightcrawler portrayed a founder exhausted by change. “I miss the days when we could interact and collaborate with a small group of supportive people instead of the whole world,” he said. “The site was 24/7, with endless queues, never-ending inboxes and super crowded. It’s a very different world from 2005. The pressure for piracy has increased dramatically, along with takedowns and legal burdens.”
Others in the ROM hacking community tell a different story. At X, community member Gideon Zhi said he sympathized with Nightcrawler’s burnout. “But he’s existed as a single point of failure on the site, exerted heavy-handed control over community-created content, and steadfastly rejected basically all offers of help for the past decade,” Zhi said.
As you’ve probably noticed by now, https://t.co/TiLKoimaVG is effectively dead. After all, that was probably for the best: the site was built in the mid-2000s and the backend had never been redesigned. As a result, it was costing admins hundreds of dollars per month.
— Gideon Zhi (@GideonZhi) August 2, 2024
According to Zhi’s thread, Nightcrawler had been considering the idea of ​​shutting down the site since 2023, and had no plans to archive the works initially. What followed were months of infighting over who would take over and how.
Nightcrawler commented on the matter in his own post, but did not provide any details. “Phase 1 involved the difficult task of getting the downloads into their hands,” Nightcrawler said. “As I progressed to launching Phase 2, I discovered a very dishonest and hateful group. I learned that I had been dehumanized for a long time. My personal information had been leaked. A covert deception plan was being developed to eliminate me and bomb me as if I was a target that needed to be destroyed. My family has seen and spoken with this, and we are immediately ceasing all associated site operations. I have severed ties with the Discord and Twitter social media outlets, and will have no further contact with these individuals.”
Zhi shared some details of the internal conflict in X’s thread, refuting claims that Nightcrawler had his personal information leaked. “The staff was becoming increasingly frustrated. Days went by with no response from NC,” Zhi said. “He refused to join Discord to discuss a solution in real time. Did we vent our grievances privately? Absolutely. Did I leak personal information or make threats? Absolutely not! Honestly, even the suggestion that I did so infuriates me.”
At the end of his post, Nightcrawler disowned the site’s X and Discord accounts and shared a link to a backup of the site on the Internet Archive.
