Hacker News Reader

Comment by t-3 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know whether I find it more crazy that editing a save file is a criminal offence in Japan, or that people will pay $30-$85 for the service.

View on HN

The crime was selling - not editing. Not defending the arrest but it's a pretty big difference.

Sure, but editing is probably still illegal as the save files are encrypted (sections 17-18 of Article 2): https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3629

Don't agree. If you look at the opening of each section, there's prohibitions against 'the act of transferring, delivering, displaying for the purpose of transfer or delivery, exporting, or importing, a device [which allows subversion of some kind][...]' and similarly for transmission of software or the like.

All these verbs relate to some sort of commercial transaction, rather than the modification per se. My read is that you could modify it freely, or even write an article documenting the save file format and how to mess with it. It's the act of commercializing the process that makes the difference between a server ban and an arrest warrant.

This is the country that brought you

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate/Grand_Order

Yes, some video games are made in Japan.

What is significant about this one?

Perhaps that it is a very lucrative gacha game. This sort of game is distributed for free and makes its money through microtransactions that amount to power boosts. Save editing would sidestep the business model. Another example of felony contempt of business model?

FGO is an online game though, editing saves isn't a thing because the data you'd need to edit is all on their servers.

I think the asset packs are local so I think you could get images, character models, and stuff like that by hacking on a game.

>microtransactions that amount to power boosts.

Tell me you know nothing about FGO without saying you know nothing about FGO.

Microtransactions in FGO are for purchasing new characters from the gacha. "Power boosting" only comes from just playing the game like everyone else.

Source: Been playing FGO Japan since 2016, and yes I'm a whale and yes I'm happy.

I am into the other Fate games and anime related culture (got Tamamo JK and Archer figurines) I’ve had the damndest time getting FGO to play on anything other than a high end smartphone. With most mobile games you can play on a tablet or side load into a NVIDIA shield or play on an emulator that runs a PC but not that. I have a box full of various bottom tier Android phones (often Android Go) but these don’t have sufficient memory.

I remember getting it to run on one of my devices once for a while but I was shocked at how bad the english translation was, worse than the average live action Chinese TV series.

To be fair Fate games are all about developing a strong emotional connection to the characters so I can definitely see somebody rolling a huge number of times if they want a character that they moe really hard for.

Currently I'm playing FGO on my Samsung Galaxy S4 Tablet, though it's definitely showing its age now. I'll probably have to upgrade it in a few more years. I could alternatively move over to playing on my Sony Xperia 5 IV, but I like playing on a big screen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com