What is the exact legal status of mods, romhacks, and patches of games in the United States.

Firstly, I'm sorry. Especially to mods. I know I'm kinda on like a thread probation of sorts for making too many things.

Please forgive me, because at the moment, I'm really burning with this question. Along with a lot of other threads, but they'll have to wait in Notepad for a while.

So I've been playing all of the above for years now, romhacks, mods, English translations of games that have never been localized. Sonic Mania mods, romhacks of Mega Man games, translations like Mother 3. I own a lot of legitimized roms via Steam now, such as the SEGA Mega Drive Classics, and now, all of the current Mega Man Legacy Collections, X now being in the bunch. And got the though of how, for years and years now, I've wanted legitimate ways of playing said romhacks, and SEGA is awesome for offering an opportunity to do so. That hasn't existed with Capcom games yet, though.

Literally the only reason I like playing Mega Man romhacks is because it allows me to play as Roll. Though I have tried the MegaMari hack and some others, playable Roll is my primary reason for romhacking Mega Man games. A couple years back I made a thread on Steam asking if I could use said romhacks on the Mega Man Legacy Collection games. I got absolutely no responses. However, now that the X Collection is out and I started playing it, I got up the idea to ask the Steam community again, and hope for better luck.

I was greeted by a response this time rather than silence. A response saying that it's illegal. That you're modifying the original content of the game which is a violation of copyright, akin to piracy. And that you don't have a legal right to modify game code. That reasoning would make not only romhacks illegal, but for instance, game mods like the all so common and popular mods for Elder Scrolls games, or English translations like the translation patch for games like Mother 3. Meaning there would be no legal way to enjoy Mother 3 in your native language as someone who isn't Japanese. Even if you own the original Mother 3 cart. All the more reason to make sure Reggie Fils-Aime can't catch a break ever until the game is released overseas, I suppose. So if the tomatoe flavored Mother 3 translation is, indeed, illegal, do make sure to badger Reggie Fils-Aime unrelentingly until he can't sleep at night, and he sees Lucas and Claus in his dreams.

But is it? I'm not a lawyer. I always just assumed that "modifying game code", i.e. romhacks, mods, and fan translations via patches, were all legal in the United States under fair use. I'm just someone who likes playing as Roll and finds that to be more enjoyable than playing as Rock. Enjoys Mother 3 and doesn't like waiting for the official Mother 3 localization that is way overdue, and doesn't want to miss out on an all time classic game because of this. And thinks that mods are pretty well required to make any Elder Scrolls game a remotely enjoyable experience with as little uncanny potatoeface as possible.

Furthermore, if the claim that romhacks is illegal is true, why does a major Corporate platform, Steam, officially support it? Why is there Steamworks pages for games, on Steam, that let you modify games, even rom collections? The SEGA Mega Drive Collection has a Steamworks page condones and hosts fan created romhacks, like the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Pink Edition romhack, allowing you to play as female characters, Sonic heroines not previously playable in 2D Classic Sonic games.

I'm not asking whether modifying game code is moral or not, by the way. It's not stealing, and I'm asking the legal aspects of it. In as great of detail as possible. Piracy is illegal, but whether it is moral or not is an ongoing debate, one that most game sites don't allow because they don't want to grab the ire of the game industry, but an ongoing moral debate nonetheless, along with many things that are legal/illegal.

And that's what I would like to know, in as great of detail as possible, as well as a simple yes or no, whether playing as Roll in Mega Man games, or playing Mother 3 in English is legal by any means.

Modding is not a crime.

The legal way to obtain a modded ROM is first to obtain a legit copy of the ROM (e.g. by buying a legit cartridge and dumping it yourself or by buying a digital copy of the game and extracting the ROM file). Second, you download the mod in the form of a patch--it must not include a copy of the ROM. Finally, you apply the mod patch to your legit ROM to create a legit modded ROM that you can legally play on any emulator or homebrew-unlocked hardware.

Does this mean that, in theory, since I own the entire Collection of, all four so far, Mega Man Legacy Collection games, MMLC1, MMLC2, MMXLC1, and MMLC2, were I to find a way to implement, say, the Roll-chan 3 romhack to copy of Mega Man 3 in the MMLC1, modifying the rom they've provided and sold to me, to play as Roll, I have the legal right to do so?

At most you would be violating the EULA of the game you are modifying. No one is going to know or care that you are modding your own games unless you try to start selling them or something.

You should really contact an attorney if you need more specific answers for whatever reason, you aren't going to get legitimate legal advice on a video game forum.

Large scale modding projects and things like fan translations have definitely been shut down in the past, but it generally happens when it starts to get in the way of an actual commercial endeavor on the holders part.

On a small scale though? Nobody pays attention to romhacks, or translations of games that came out decades ago, or what have you. I've never even heard of anyone taking substantial action against the very illegal practice of just hosting roms or isos outright.

So whether or not you have the 'legal right' is pretty complicated but no one at all is going to notice.

Yeah, that would be legal. The key is that as long as you're not participating in the distribution of copyrighted material (i.e. ROMs), you're in the clear. If you're doing everything with your own ROMs and keeping the results for your own personal use only, there's no problem.

Although if any of this involves the circumventing of DRM then all that is kinda thrown out.

Off topic, but Nintendo just sued just such a site owner, for 100 million dollars.

There's a distinction worth making between ROM hacks and mods, especially for games that have official modding support. ROM hacks are done my altering the game code in some way the developers never intended. Mods are usually done by altering files that developers designed to be modifiable. In simple cases, it's just modifying a .ini file to change the game speed or disable an effect. However, with games like Morrowind (not sure about the newer TES games) and Warcraft 3, the developers released tools to make it easier for the community to create mods. I don't think either is illegal, but mods seem completely safe.

If true, this is the sort of thing that further makes me want to support PC gaming more as a better alternative to console gaming, as well as consider myself a PC gamer. And someone who will always want more native PC ports than just roms and an emulator being sold, like many Steam games are.

Regular PC games seem far more moddable than roms are, despite roms having a very healthy modding community as well. PC games feel far more personal and customizable than roms do.