• toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    …Recent laws in Japan have criminalized console and game modding, as well as save file editing…

    WHAT? why?..what???

    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
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      2 months ago

      Because:

      Due to an amendment in December 2018 of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act in Japan, certain gaming-related activities and services have now been declared illegal. This includes:

      • Distribution of tools and programs for modifying game saves
      • Selling product keys and serials online without the software maker’s permission
      • Game save and console modding services
        As such, sales of products such as Pro Action Replay and Cybergadget’s “Save editor” have been discontinued.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/abk551/save_game_editors_and_console_modding_now_illegal/

      It’s meant to ban sale of hardware devices and services that allow playing pirated games on Switch and such, but due to the way it’s worded it just bans them all.