For the previous few months, Nintendo-related content material has been disappearing from Garry’s Mod, the physics-based sandbox sport and modding platform beloved by Steam gamers.
The supply of the takedown requests presents a worst-case situation for the group; somewhat than coming from copyright trolls, the takedowns are coming from Nintendo itself, in keeping with creator Garry Newman of Facepunch Studios. “I’ve been assured that the takedowns have been verified by Nintendo as legit,” Newman wrote on X, including that removals will proceed as deliberate. “Sorry.”
Facepunch has its work lower out for it. “Now we have 20 years of uploads to undergo,” the studio wrote on the sport’s Steam web page. “If you wish to assist us by deleting your Nintendo associated uploads and by no means importing them once more, that will assist us quite a bit.”
Neither Nintendo nor Newman responded to a request for remark.
Nintendo’s aggressive copyright safety is effectively documented and broadly recognized. The corporate goes after emulator creators, homebrew instruments, fanmade video games, parodies, and extra; even main mod platforms keep away from internet hosting content material they worry may entice a Nintendo copyright declare. Facepunch says the request to take away this stuff is “honest sufficient.”
“That is Nintendo’s content material and what they permit and do not enable is as much as them,” the developer wrote in its announcement. “They do not need you enjoying with that stuff in Garry’s Mod—that is their determination, we’ve to respect that and take down as a lot as we are able to.”
Throughout the Garry’s Mod group, some customers are scrambling to archive no matter they will.
Since information that Nintendo is behind the takedowns broke, new add-ons have been showing within the retailer: content material like stickers studying “Fuck Nintendo,” or reskins for dumpsters branding them “Nintendo Workplace.” It’s unclear whether or not these new additions may even be eliminated.
