A repack is usually a cracked release from another source that has been heavily compressed to reduce file size. They often come with a custom installer that manages the decompression process and streamlines the installation process, so you don't have to manually install patches/cracks after installation, and can skip optional content. Trusted repackers like FitGirl will also check for malware/viruses in the original crack, so you can be reasonably confident the repack is safe to install. Having said that, always take your own precautions when installing anything from the internet, i.e. virus scan and only use trusted sources.
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Also, due to the heavy compression, they take longer to install than normal releases, since it takes processing power to decompress the files. If you have a fast internet connection but a slow PC, theoretically it could be faster to avoid the repack.
Cracks are usually released separately from the uncracked game files. Repackers take those cracks and package them with the correct version of the game, compress the files and add an installer. Then they upload them to the more mainstream public trackers.
Repacks have several benefits. They tend to be easier to setup and usually more reliable. They download faster and use less data because they are compressed. They are also sometimes packaged with extras like soundtracks, mods, etc.
Fitgirl repacks are known to be more compressed, so the files are a little smaller but take a fair amount longer to install.
Why don't the crackers just repackage it? Or is repackaging an art unto itself?
Crackers mostly post the cracks to IRC sites, cs.rin.ru, and private torrent sites. Repackers are the main way releases make it to the mainstream torrent sites.
Repacking isn't that complicated anymore, it's more about reputation. There was a time when games were big and internet speed was slow so saving every MB of size was important. Repackers would reencode video files and find other ways of dramatically reducing the file size. Nowadays they don't do a lot of that, but repackers are still important for casual pirates who just want to easily play pirated games and not worry about malware.
Thanks. So would an appropriate anaolgy be that of a video game software developer vs a publisher, eg publisher takes care of all of the public fronting, advertising, being the 'name' etc etc while the devs (crackers) are the ones doing the actual work on the product?
Late to the party here, but where are some of these IRC sites?
So the hierarchy generally goes like this:
- You have a game
- Then you have your patch and crack makers that circumvent the games DRM. This game and patch ingredient box is called a “release”
- Then you have your repackers like fitgirl and dodi that take a release, apply the included patch to the game, make sure everything is configured and the game runs, then compress the whole thing heavily, sometimes reducing everything by up to 50%, then break the package up into a handful of large chunks, some of those chunks being things that you might not want, making them optional to you, like the soundtrack, alternative language audio packs, etc.
Because everything is so damn compressed, a game will usually take a long time to install, because your computer is literally re-inflating the bouncy castle. A lot of people will take those install times over the download sizes of the original releases which I think clarifies most who these repackers actually serve.
They exist for people with data caps and slow internet. If you can avoid downloading languages and soundtracks you don’t want in the first place then that saves you much needed data and time. And even though installation (which is actually just decompression) takes an age, it’s still faster than terrible internet downloading twice as much.
literally re-inflating the bouncy castle
What if my computer isn't attached to a bouncy castle? Do I need to buy special hardware for this?
They exist for people with data caps and slow internet
For me, they exist so I can justify keeping the installer to seed long-term.
My (limited) understanding is this:
When someone cracks a game, the end result of their work may not be accessible or easily distributable to average users. Their focus is on cracking the game, not necessarily distributing the crack.
Others like FitGirl come along, creating launchers that take care of any dependencies needed for the game, and in general making it painless to run the cracked game. In other words, they repack the cracked game in a more user-friendly packaging.
If you've seen Breaking Bad, there's a similar dynamic there. Walter may be the one making the product, but he can't distribute it alone - he needs someone to make it widely accessible, if he wants people to actually use his product.
To add to this: I consider myself relatively tech savvy for somebody who is not “a coder“ or similar. That being said, whenever I am interested in a project or something for my computer and I am directed to a GitHub repo, I immediately start calculating how badly I want to do the thing against the steps that are being given to me. If somebody has a stable/relatively easy to run package (like Dolphin), I am far more likely to move forward.
As a programmer, I am the same way because I'm lazy, lol
The best programmers are, 80/20 is life
“This looks like work NOPE!” x out lol
Sorta this but more so the crackers release essentially a bunch of files and folders that runs the game, someone like fitgirl can take a bunch of the files and rrpack them in a smaller, compressed format. This quickly became popular for people with bad connection, as download size is small; and also for archivalists, who don't need to install/unpack the game, just want to keep it as efficiently as possible
Thank you - forgot about the compression aspect of it
They are great for both those with slow connections and for archival purposes
Firgirl repacks are a godsend. Just being able to not download the languages you don't need is amazing, all games should allow that by default. Why should I download extra 50GB of content in languages I won't use?
They download an existing release, and re-compress it using a very high level of compression, basically.
years ago repacks used to take videos etc out of releases to make them more friendly to people back in the dial up days
Also please please support FitGirl by donating via crypto. Send your shit coins to her so those coins can actually be useful for once.
Repacks are only useful if your internet is from third world countries, like 100Mbps
In Europe repacks are useless
Edit: apparently Germany doesn't seem to have normal speeds
You, my friend, have clearly never lived on the German countryside... I know plenty of people there who would probably kill for 100MBit/s
Me from Germany, living in a populated city, downspeed doesn't get higher than 60Mbits: 💀💀💀
lmfao 100mbps is pretty decent in Canada too.
They are still useful if you don't want to source and combine releases+cracks+configurations yourself, or if you want to archive games in a space-efficient manner. I have to imagine most people installing repacks are not just doing so because they're faster to download.
100Mbps is average affordable speed in Australia sadly. The pro big business political party here (LNP) sabotaged our nationwide fibre rollout commenced in 2007. It's taken this bloody long to finally begin undo the deliberate sabotage of our nation's broadband infrastructure done to benefit Rupert Murdoch & the incumbent monopolist Telco.
German infrastructure has been neglected for several decades. In the past, the whole phone grid was nationalized under the Deutsche Telekom, which eventually got spun off into a regular company.
For some insane reason the government basically let them keep almost all of the existing telecommunications infrastructure, giving them a quasi monopoly for many years and the lobbying power to delay upgrading the grid to modern fibre connections in favor of squeezing marginal improvements out of the old copper wires.
Even today the upgrading is going slowly, but at least in cities the connections are reasonably fast, I have about 300 mbits in a fairly small town (about 200k people)