I’m aware that you CAN unpack unencrypted .paks (and encrypted ones if you have the key) my question was why
I, for one, have never unpacked, decrypted, deconstructed or reverse engineered someone else’s hard work. That’s just wrong. However you justify it to yourself by saying everyone else does it, at its core, you are still taking someones work, without their permission. Even just “peeking at the code” is still “morally or ethically wrong”. say you find a greatly efficient way to code some random function, now you could freely share that knowledge, maybe even do a tutorial, or you might want to keep it to yourself. so you make a game that includes said code and all is well. some time later some guy unpacks your files and peeks at your code (and lets be real here, the only reason to peek at someone else’s code is to gain knowledge you did not earn(commonly referred to as stealing) and use it to adapt “your code”) if he then goes on to make a game with said function you would sue the **** out of him.