As I wrote the codecs were usually included in the game. No sane developer assumed that they are already installed in the system.

Now how do you get a game to not use the codec it’s shipped with? By cracking.

The codec is embedded in the game. You are not allowed to crack a game to make it play a video or reroute it to some other software. That’s illegal.

If money is involved people will unsheath their knifes.

Yeah. It is. But it’s a powerful one. 😬

In older times when in-game scenes weren’t invented yet game studios often played Bink videos.

You need a licence for the codec meaning someone has to pay to play.

I think it just doesn’t free up any loaded texture if the VRAM size is large.

Works as designed.

Memory is there to be used. Why do you want to limit the usage? Do you need the memory elsewhere?