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The retro gaming and emulation community needs to take a deep breath
May 2, 2025
The State of Emulation in 2025
To put things bluntly, last year sucked for the emulation community. Nintendo swept through and took away two of the best emulators that we’ve ever seen, leaving a massive void that has yet to be truly filled. However, it’s usually not the massive corporations that are detrimental to the progression of emulators; it’s the community.
Earlier this week, the development of Winlator was officially put on pause, following a barrage of harassment. The catalyst for it all was that after Winlator 10.0 was released, someone found a Trojan that was raising flags in Windows Defender when the APK was downloaded to a computer.
(Image credit: Winlator/GitHub)
After further inspection, it was the “TestD3D.exe” file, which was created and included by the developer as a way to offer benchmarking capabilities from within the container. This was later backed up, as people began running the APK through a variety of virus checkers. It sure didn’t take long for the news to spread like wildfire within the community, with many suggesting that brunodev85, the developer, was trying to cause harm.
Since Winlator burst onto the scene, we’ve seen a variety of “forks,” or alternative iterations created, all while Bruno continued working on the “main branch.” It’s even reached the point that GameSir adopted Winlator as the backend for its GameHub app, which is essentially just a wrapper for Winlator, with a bunch of extra GameSir stuff thrown in.
As such, the developer made the project closed-source with the release of version 7.1, meaning that the entire codebase is no longer available for everyone to see. This is important, as the Trojan could have been spotted sooner, avoiding the entire situation.
(Image credit: Winlator/GitHub)
At the same time, comments and questions have been previously brought up as to why Winlator would be flagged by antivirus software, only for the developer to claim it’s a “false positive” or for the GitHub issue to be closed without any comment. So, to an extent, at least some of the backlash is warranted, but not to the extent that we saw.
I’m not here to debate whether Winlator should have remained open source or not, but what I do want to circle back to is the toxicity of the community. For one, this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen a developer of a popular emulator leave the scene entirely. A similar situation happened with the popular PS2 emulator, AetherSX2.
(Image credit: Andrew Myrick / Android Central)
That project closed up shop in early 2023, with the developer stating that the reasons include “never-ending impersonating, complaints, demands, and now death threats.” That situation came to a head after the AetherSX2 developer released an update that included an ad banner in the app. Previously, the developer was known for being staunchly against paid emulators, only to turn around and do the same thing.
At the time, it felt like a punch in the gut to the Android emulation scene, especially given what happened earlier in 2024 with Yuzu and Ryujinx. This is just the reality of the space, where people want to do anything they can to cause problems if a developer (or team of devs) isn’t giving them what they want.
(Image credit: Andrew Myrick / Android Central)
Basically, the temper tantrum-like responses have just become meme fodder within the space. Everyone who pays attention knows what’s going to happen whenever a major change is made or a brand-new emulator is released. Frankly, it’s sad, as many of these emulators get started by just a single person, and are doing so out of love for the console, development, or whatever reasons they want.
Let me put it this way: there’s enough hate, negativity, and vitriol in the rest of the world. It doesn’t need to spread even further into our various hobbies and niches just because of an app or emulator.
The retro gaming and emulation community needs to take a deep breath
The State of Emulation in 2025
To put things bluntly, last year sucked for the emulation community. Nintendo swept through and took away two of the best emulators that we’ve ever seen, leaving a massive void that has yet to be truly filled. However, it’s usually not the massive corporations that are detrimental to the progression of emulators; it’s the community.
Earlier this week, the development of Winlator was officially put on pause, following a barrage of harassment. The catalyst for it all was that after Winlator 10.0 was released, someone found a Trojan that was raising flags in Windows Defender when the APK was downloaded to a computer.
After further inspection, it was the “TestD3D.exe” file, which was created and included by the developer as a way to offer benchmarking capabilities from within the container. This was later backed up, as people began running the APK through a variety of virus checkers. It sure didn’t take long for the news to spread like wildfire within the community, with many suggesting that brunodev85, the developer, was trying to cause harm.
Since Winlator burst onto the scene, we’ve seen a variety of “forks,” or alternative iterations created, all while Bruno continued working on the “main branch.” It’s even reached the point that GameSir adopted Winlator as the backend for its GameHub app, which is essentially just a wrapper for Winlator, with a bunch of extra GameSir stuff thrown in.
As such, the developer made the project closed-source with the release of version 7.1, meaning that the entire codebase is no longer available for everyone to see. This is important, as the Trojan could have been spotted sooner, avoiding the entire situation.
At the same time, comments and questions have been previously brought up as to why Winlator would be flagged by antivirus software, only for the developer to claim it’s a “false positive” or for the GitHub issue to be closed without any comment. So, to an extent, at least some of the backlash is warranted, but not to the extent that we saw.
I’m not here to debate whether Winlator should have remained open source or not, but what I do want to circle back to is the toxicity of the community. For one, this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen a developer of a popular emulator leave the scene entirely. A similar situation happened with the popular PS2 emulator, AetherSX2.
That project closed up shop in early 2023, with the developer stating that the reasons include “never-ending impersonating, complaints, demands, and now death threats.” That situation came to a head after the AetherSX2 developer released an update that included an ad banner in the app. Previously, the developer was known for being staunchly against paid emulators, only to turn around and do the same thing.
At the time, it felt like a punch in the gut to the Android emulation scene, especially given what happened earlier in 2024 with Yuzu and Ryujinx. This is just the reality of the space, where people want to do anything they can to cause problems if a developer (or team of devs) isn’t giving them what they want.
Basically, the temper tantrum-like responses have just become meme fodder within the space. Everyone who pays attention knows what’s going to happen whenever a major change is made or a brand-new emulator is released. Frankly, it’s sad, as many of these emulators get started by just a single person, and are doing so out of love for the console, development, or whatever reasons they want.
Let me put it this way: there’s enough hate, negativity, and vitriol in the rest of the world. It doesn’t need to spread even further into our various hobbies and niches just because of an app or emulator.