Game decompilation hub freezes leaderboard after AI turns progress into a hollow numbers game amid explosion of 'AI slop'

The decomp.dev community, which tracks and centralizes game decompilation progress, has decided to shut down its public index and leaderboard. The decision comes as the acceleration of AI technology has negatively impacted the decompilation community. Creator @encounter points to abuses related to AI usage, such as AI helping forks complete others' projects and a rush to complete PC ports with little regard for quality.

While banning AI-assisted projects is challenging due to varying standards, @encounter believes it's not the role of one hobbyist to decide what stays on the leaderboard. The site was created in 2024 to centralize matching decompilation progress and grow a community around it, aiming to have hand-written source code that could compile back to the original game.

However, recent models like OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra have made the progress percentages on decomp.dev easier to push up, making the site "causing more harm than good." The competitive spirit has been corrupted, as the progress has become a "hollow numbers game" where people use AI to make numbers go up. The community has seen the emergence of "Sloptubers" and subreddits like r/decomps, which falsely synonymize "decomp" and "PC port."

Despite the widening of the community, the creator emphasizes that decompilation is primarily for research, not for creating half-working ports. Some original projects avoid AI for legal or ethical reasons, and AI forks may contribute little back. The site's creator, a GitHub maintainer of decomp-toolkit, will keep reporting on existing projects like Super Smash Bros.

Melee and Animal Crossing, but no new projects may join, and the site won't be rebuilt from its code.