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Tekken 6 Rollback Mod Row: Dogura's 'Piracy' Post vs Western Preservation Fans. Timeline

A fan-made Tekken 6 PC port with rollback netcode drew thousands of players. Dogura called it piracy, Western fans called it preservation. Dated timeline, both sides.

A Axortex ·

TL;DR: A fan project that gives Tekken 6 rollback netcode and a working online lobby on PC blew up in mid-October 2026. It's made by a Czech developer who goes by Ekspym. The current version, Tekken6 Native Online, recompiles the Xbox 360 game to run natively on Windows. The download doesn't include the game: each player has to supply their own disc image. On 18 October (KST), Japanese pro Dogura (Ryo Nozaki) called it "the pirated version of Tekken 6" and said it "crosses the line way too much". The post passed 11.8 million views on X, and Western players hit back, calling the project preservation. Bandai Namco hasn't said anything publicly. Ekspym says he'll shut the project down if Bandai Namco asks him to.

Last checked: 20 October 2026, 19:15 KST. All times are KST (UTC+9) unless noted. The project is still being updated, so the numbers below will go out of date.

What the mod actually is

There are really two projects, and early coverage mixed them up.

  1. The RPCS3 version (early October). On 6 October, Ekspym posted on X that he "havent been rly enjoying tekken 8 and wanted to play Tekken 6 for fun but netcode was horrible so i made rollback netcode" (X). This first build was a modified copy of the PS3 emulator RPCS3. It added GGPO-style rollback to the PS3 version's online modes. Its readme says the package "contains neither the PS3 firmware nor the game" (IGN).
  2. Tekken6 Native Online (from 12 October). This version uses no emulator. It recompiles the Xbox 360 version's code so it runs natively on Windows, then adds rollback, a lobby and ranked matches. It doesn't ship any game data. Users point it at their own Xbox 360 disc image, and the game is converted and compiled on their own PC (Inven Global; Dot Esports).

Who made it? Ekspym built the rollback layer and the launcher, and he runs the servers. The recompilation builds on earlier community work. Dot Esports and IGN credit a modder called yuzinator for the recompile (Dot Esports). The project's own readme thanks a GitHub user named "mahmoud-mess" for "tekken6-recomp". On X, Ekspym publicly thanked @yuzinator "and this recomp" on 12 October (X). We couldn't confirm whether those two names belong to the same person.

Dated timeline

Date & time (KST) Event Source
6 Oct, 04:59 Ekspym announces a rollback-netcode build of Tekken 6 on X X
8 Oct, 23:08 v1.0 of the RPCS3 rollback build is tagged on GitHub. Eight releases follow by 10 Oct GitHub release history (API)
12 Oct Tekken6 Native Online (Xbox 360 recompile) is released. Ekspym thanks yuzinator's recomp Inven Global, X
16 Oct, 16:11 Tekken content creator Arya Tayebi: "around 500 people" are playing online "right now" (X-sourced) X
17 Oct, 14:53 Japanese player Higemura warns that "unauthorized" Tekken 6 servers could pull players and money away from the official series X, IGN
17 Oct, 23:17 Ekspym posts a statement: he'll shut it down if Bandai Namco objects or makes T6 playable online officially X
18 Oct, 02:17 Arya: "Potential customers aren't a publisher's property" X
18 Oct, 03:05 Ekspym's rank chart, dated 17 Oct, shows 3,889 ranked players (X-sourced) X
18 Oct, 03:16 Dogura's post X
18 Oct, 03:39 A fan account claims "over 10K players". Ekspym replies that the figure counts registrations, not active players (X-sourced) X, X
18 Oct, 14:00 Arika VP Ichiro Mihara joins in, citing Garou/Fatal Fury netcode as a hypothetical X, Dot Esports
18 Oct, 16:37 Dogura asks a follow-up question about old Japanese arcade cabinets overseas X
19 Oct Dot Esports and IGN cover the row Dot Esports, IGN
19 Oct, 18:32 Arya: "legality and morality are separate questions" X
20 Oct Inven Global publishes the developer's usage stats. The project is still receiving updates (latest release 18:40 KST) Inven Global, GitHub release history

What Dogura actually said

Here's the original post, in full (X, 18 Oct 03:16 KST):

鉄拳6の海賊版？のやつはライン越えすぎなんだけど、海外勢で否定的な声を上げてる人がいなくて慄いています。

ここまで根本的な価値観や道徳感が違うと、恐らく会話できない。 正しい対処がなされる事を祈っています。

IGN's translation: "The pirated version of Tekken 6? That thing crosses the line way too much, and I'm horrified that no one overseas is raising negative voices about it… When our fundamental values and sense of morality differ this much, we probably can't even have a conversation. I'm praying that the right response is taken" (IGN).

There's a detail English headlines tend to lose. The word he used is 海賊版 (kaizokuban, "pirated edition"), and he put a question mark right after it. Calling the project "piracy" is a fair summary of how he framed it. But he didn't call for a lawsuit, and he didn't name Ekspym. By the time we checked, the post had more than 11.8 million impressions and 25,800 likes on X.

Later that day, Dogura replied to a rhythm-game player who had complained about likely-illegal arcade machines at Western events. He wrote: "海外大会に行った時、懐かしい日本のアーケードゲーム(北斗の拳のパンチマニアなど)を遊んだ事があるんですが、違法なのでしょうか？純粋な質問なのでご教授頂けると幸いです。" Our translation: "When I went to overseas tournaments, I played some nostalgic Japanese arcade games (like Hokuto no Ken Punch Mania). Was that illegal? It's a genuine question, so I'd be grateful if you could explain" (X). IGN notes that some Japanese players also pushed back on his stance (IGN).

The numbers

Metric Figure Date Source
Accounts created on the native-online service 9,574 12–17 Oct Developer stats via Inven Global
Unique users who actually played a match 6,044 12–17 Oct Same
Matches played 111,052 12–17 Oct Same
Players with at least one ranked game 3,889 17 Oct Ekspym's chart (X-sourced)
"Online right now" ~500 16 Oct Arya Tayebi (X-sourced)
Downloads 4,547 as of 15 Oct IGN
Full-package downloads, native-online (all releases) 26,822 (+38,538 patch downloads) 20 Oct, 19:15 KST GitHub release API, counted by Axortex
Dogura post impressions 11.84M 20 Oct X
Bar chart: 9,574 accounts created, 6,044 users who played a match, 3,889 ranked players, about 500 online at once

About the "10,000+ users" headline. That number traces back to a fan post on X saying the recomp "now has over 10K players". Ekspym corrected it about 90 minutes later: "Registrations not active players or not even 10k ppl with aleast one game" (X). The developer's own figures point to roughly 6,000 people who actually played between 12 and 17 October. GitHub download counts include repeat downloads and updates, so they don't tell you how many people use it.

Side A: "This is piracy, full stop"

  • Dogura said the project "crosses the line" and that overseas players' silence about it alarmed him (quoted above).
  • Higemura said running a Tekken 6 service without permission means "infringing on rights and gobbling up Bandai Namco's assets and potential customers," and that fans should "develop a new fighting game that's Tekken 6-like" instead (IGN translation). In replies, he added a worry that unchecked licence breaches could make future guest-character collaborations harder (X). Dot Esports notes he also claimed extracted game data had been uploaded to GitHub, which contradicts the package's stated contents (Dot Esports).
  • Ichiro Mihara (Arika vice president, who worked on the online features of Tekken 7 and 8, per Dot Esports) wrote: "俺が餓狼CoWのネットコードを勝手に作って権利者に許可もなく公開たらどうなるよ？" Our translation: "What would happen if I made netcode for Garou CoW [Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves] on my own and released it without the rights holder's permission?" (X).
  • Many other Japanese replies argued that a game not being re-released doesn't give anyone the right to play it. Some went much further: IGN reports comparisons to theft and to far more serious crimes (IGN).

Side B: "There's no other way to play it"

  • No official route. Tekken 6 came out on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2009 and never got a PC release. The Xbox 360 version is backward compatible on Xbox One, and the PSP version was re-released on PS4/PS5 in 2023 without multiplayer. Neither gives you rollback online play (Inven Global; Dot Esports).
  • No lost sale. Supporters say the project needs your own copy and distributes no game files, so Bandai Namco loses nothing it could have sold today. One widely quoted reply: "If I take a broken old bike out of the trash and repair it, why are you saying I am stealing from the bike corporation?" (IGN).
  • Arya Tayebi (That Blasted Salami, Wavedash podcast): "Most Tekken 6 players own T8. If they prefer a 17 year old game, ask why instead of calling them lost sales" (X). In Japanese, he told Higemura that if Bandai Namco officially released a rollback version, he'd "gladly buy it" (X). Inven notes he also conceded that circumventing protection or recompiling copyrighted code could raise legal problems in Japan (Inven Global).
  • The developer put it this way: "This online was not made for people. It was made FOR ME… If bamco contancts that they dont like it i am shutting it down. If bamco makes T6 playable online i am shutting this down" (X, image post). In the same post, he defended using AI as "just a tool". Some critics had attacked the project on those grounds.

Both camps have also traded plenty of insults. Dot Esports describes Japanese users calling Westerners "thieves", and Western users firing back with "corporate bootlickers" (Dot Esports).

Bandai Namco and Harada

Bandai Namco hasn't commented publicly, and no takedown has been reported (Inven Global; Dot Esports). We read Katsuhiro Harada's public X posts from 10 to 20 October and found nothing about the project (X).

What's at stake

  • For Bandai Namco: whether to tolerate it, send a takedown, or treat it as market research. Inven points to precedents in both directions. Nintendo issued DMCA takedowns against a decompiled Super Mario 64 PC port in 2020 and settled with the Yuzu emulator team in 2024 for $2.4 million (Inven Global).
  • For the developer and players: the project depends on one person's servers and goodwill. Ekspym has already said he'll pull it if asked.
  • For the FGC: this is the old East–West split over emulation, and it's back in public. One side sees a moral line. The other sees a rights holder that hasn't offered a product.
  • The legal picture, in plain terms: the law differs by country. Japan treats some circumvention and piracy offences as criminal, while US courts have held that emulators themselves are legal (Dot Esports). Nothing here is legal advice, and using unlicensed game copies can be illegal where you live.

What's still unclear

  • Whether "yuzinator" and "mahmoud-mess" are the same person.
  • How many people are playing right now. Ekspym says he doesn't log concurrent users (X).
  • Whether Bandai Namco will respond at all.

Sources

#tekken#tekken-6#rollback-netcode#dogura#bandai-namco#game-preservation#fgc#esports-controversy
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