ROM Hacks, Randomizers, and Retro Games: Challenging Copyright and Remixing Zelda

This conference paper, presented at the 2019 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference, examines how videogame hacking communities share and distribute projects built on copyrighted commercial games despite legal risk. Its central case study is the A Link to the Past Randomizer, a popular ROM hack of the 1991 Super NES title The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that converts the linear adventure into a randomized, competitive game played through communities on Twitch and Discord. The paper frames hacking subcultures as creative labour operating at the margins of media production and law.

The author situates the work within the broader history of hacker ethics and the tightening of intellectual property enforcement after the rise of the Internet and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A key point is Nintendo's high-profile lawsuits against ROM distribution sites such as LoveROMs.com and LoveRETRO.co, which the paper argues produce a chilling effect on hobbyist hackers who lack resources to resist corporate pressure. Despite this climate, the Randomizer has attained wide popularity, which the paper attributes to decentralized game ownership and an in-browser patching application that lets users apply modifications without distributing copyrighted game data directly.

The paper's scope centres on the Super NES ROM hacking community, whose hardware has not been officially supported by Nintendo for nearly two decades, and on the residual media concepts that explain the console's continued cultural presence. The methodology draws on research interviews with members of the Randomizer's development team, supplemented by theoretical frameworks including de Certeau's concept of tactics. The work aims both to document a prolific online hacking community and to interrogate how such groups navigate legal and technical barriers.