When a beloved game loses its publisher, its community often fades with it. Android: Netrunner was one such casualty, it was a deeply strategic card game released in 2012 that built a passionate global following before its official cancellation in 2018. Rather than let it disappear, a volunteer collective called Null Signal Games stepped in almost immediately after to keep on supporting the game. Null Signal Games has since regularly released new cards, organized tournaments, and kept the game going for over 7 years. The world championship in 2025 had over 360 players, the second largest ever Netrunner tournament since its entire lifespan.

A key part of this revival is due to the use of open source software. Platforms like Jinteki.net, NetrunnerDB, and AlwaysBeRunning.net provide the digital backbone. They enable online play, deck-building, and community/tournament scheduling. On top of that there are also a bunch of smaller projects that help with a variety of small tasks, such as the online comprehensive rules or an implementation to play vs AI.

This talk explores how open source infrastructure and community involvement has sustained Netrunner beyond corporate support. We’ll look at how technical and creative volunteers coordinate across continents on such a variety of projects and what lessons other fan communities and developers can learn from this model.

Null Signal Games: https://nullsignal.games/ Jinteki.net: https://github.com/mtgred/netrunner Netrunnerdb: https://github.com/Null-Signal-Games/netrunnerdb Alwaysberunning: https://github.com/madarasz/always-be-running