The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

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.

• The paper uses the A Link to the Past Randomizer, a ROM hack of the 1991 Super NES game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, as its central case study; the hack turns the linear adventure into a randomized, competitive game played through communities on Twitch and Discord.
• The author frames ROM hacking communities as creative labour operating at the margins of media production and law, placing the work within the history of hacker ethics and the tightening of intellectual property enforcement after the rise of the Internet and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
• Nintendo's lawsuits against ROM distribution sites such as LoveROMs.com and LoveRETRO.co are argued to produce a chilling effect on hobbyist hackers who lack the resources to resist corporate pressure.