That Portal 64 demake we liked so much has been kiboshed by Valve: 'They have asked me to take the project down,' creator says : retrogaming

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 122 points 9 months ago

"Hey, don't use code for our dead game console we stopped manufacturing 22 years ago and don't support anymore!"

Who gives a fuck, Nintendo?

[-] verysoft@kbin.social 54 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Nintendo could benefit greatly by just allowing these kind of projects, but that would be out of character and we can't be having that.

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[-] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It wasn't Nintendo, it was Valve taking preemptive action because of how Nintendo has acted in the past...

It's unfortunate, but it's pretty reasonable given how Nintendo is.

[-] NewNewAccount@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Wasn’t it taken down at Valve’s request, not Nintendo’s demand?

[-] SeedyOne@lemmy.ca 34 points 9 months ago

Yes, but mainly because Valve doesn't want to deal with Nintendo's lawyers since it used their libraries.

[-] Water1053@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

I really wish they would and set a precedent for Nintendo's anti-consumer tactics.

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 7 points 9 months ago

Officially yes. We have no idea if Nintendo sent a private email saying "please figure this out before we do."

[-] WalrusByte@lemmy.world 78 points 9 months ago

It's a shame, but their request doesn't seem unreasonable. No one likes dealing with Nintendo's lawyers. I hope switching SDKs works out!

[-] Kbin_space_program@kbin.social 36 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Apparently even Valve's lawyers don't like dealing with Nintendo's lawyers.

[-] popekingjoe@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

I mean... Tbf, they are kinda dicks, so yeah, I get it.

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[-] Marsupial@quokk.au 34 points 9 months ago

It sucks but I also wouldn’t want to get involved with Nintendos lawyers so I can’t blame Steam.

[-] Sorgan71@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago

if nintendo has the potential to take legal action against valve for this I dont blame them for doing this. Nintendo has some fucking balls to the walls lawyers that will do anything to protect their IPs. Valve has every reason to be afraid of nintendo

[-] nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de 19 points 9 months ago

I don't think Nintendo would have a case against Valve, only against the developers of the demake. It looks more like Valve wants to maintain a good relationship with Nintendo, given Valve has ported Portal to the Switch and may intend to port more of their back catalog.

[-] theneverfox@pawb.social 4 points 9 months ago

Some people are also saying valve gave the guy a friendly warning about using the Nintendo sdk rather than sending a cease and desist, and the reporting on it was misleading

[-] bitwolf@lemmy.one 9 points 9 months ago

They also likely have a touchy relationship right now considering the removal of dolphin.

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[-] dpkonofa@lemmy.world 30 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I think people are missing the fact that most fanmade content that Valve has historically been ok with is all original material. Black Mesa, Portal Stories, and others all used the Valve IP but were all original content. This port actually uses Valve-created content so, regardless of Nintendo’s involvement (although it makes the demand for this action stronger), they legally have to enforce it or risk losing the legal protections for that property.

Nintendo just gave them a convenient way to stop it before they needed to do it anyways.

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[-] BroBot9000@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago

Stop with the fan projects already.

These companies don’t give a shit and will just squash any project that they can’t milk for funding.

Best case scenario you never release your work in fear of getting sued and nobody gets to play your game.

Make new projects inspired by these games and actually build your own fanbase instead of being at the behest of greedy corporations.

[-] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 55 points 9 months ago

You know, you chose a bad post to get edgy.

Valve is actually one of the companies that treats fan projects very well, sometimes they'll even let you sell your project on Steam (see Black Mesa remake).

[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

Valve is actually one of the companies that treats fan projects very well

Well, not this fan project…

[-] Zorque@kbin.social 10 points 9 months ago

No, but one example does not define everything.

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[-] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 9 months ago

Yes, but Valve didn't block it based on their own IP. The focus really should be on the fact that Nintendo is so litigious. This was a fan project of a non-Nintendo IP. Their reputation is preceding them.

[-] vexikron@lemmy.zip 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah... what this likely means is one or both of two things, for this Portal Demake and the Source 2 TF2 thing mentioned by another below:

1: Valve is still quite protective of their IP and may be working on their own new releases of some kind in these IP franchises.

and/or

2: Valve is still quite protective of these IPs and may have identified something like serious misconduct regarding something about these particular projects, or the people working on them... or they just are not looking to be even good quality games, and Valve does not want their actual games to be associated with or confused with games they expect to be of low quality.

I realize option 2 there is a bitter pill for many to swallow, but we are talking about a gaming company that is fairly well known for taking actually good mod ideas and at least attempting to hire or in some capacity work with the devs to create what often turned out to be successful games.

They are notorious for high standards in their own IPs. You've got Black Mesa and I think theres one HL2 mod that focuses on you as Commander Shepard from Opposing Force that were both actually greenlit to be sold, for money, as games on Steam, as well as a large number of successful HL2 mods that were not cancelled and are distributed for free by Steam, including Entropy Zero 1/2 and MINERVA.

Its actually pretty uncommon for Valve to DMCA Cease and Desist over mods... theres probably more at play here than just Valve are big meanie heads.

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[-] billiam0202@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

Guess you didn't hear about TF2 in Source 2.

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[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

That's a lot harder...

Not just to design and come up with, but to get people to even try it.

The smart move is to make something like this, release your own game, then release the fan project which brings visibility to your original game.

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[-] grue@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Along with that, contribute to Free Software games instead of working for free to improve commercial for-profit ones.

[-] Mango@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago

How do grown ass adults look at this and think anything other than "damn, that's pretty cool!"? Literally nobody and no company has any conceivable money to lose over this and couldn't convince me otherwise. Law should have nothing to do with all this pussyfooting about legality.

[-] torvusbogpod@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago

Valve removed it because it used official N64 APIs that Nintendo holds as classified information. I think if it had totally been bottom-up crafted from scratch, it would have survived. But Valve does NOT wanna deal with a Nintendo lawyer.

[-] boaratio@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

Classified?

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[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Why do grown adults keep using IP copyrighted by big companies? Unofficial ports, unofficial remakes, unofficial sequels, etc. get taken down all the time and yet constantly the creators think "no, my project is special. It'll be spared that fate" and almost every time they're wrong.

A Portal-like game without using Portal assets and Valve had no leg to stand on...

[-] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago

A Portal-like game without using Portal assets and Valve had no leg to stand on...

This wasn't taken down because it was based on Portal. It has nothing to do with Portal or Valve, really. It was taken down becuase it uses the official N64 SDK, which is still for some reason considered "confidential." Valve said to take it down either under duress from Nintendo, or because Valve expected to be under duress from Nintendo and didn't want to be. If it had used the libdragon API library instead of Nintendo's official one, then this wouldn't have happened and Nintendo would have been told to bite rocks.

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[-] nbafantest@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

It started out as a fun project by just a normal guy.

It is literally not possible to make a game like this any other way.

I would bet the concept goes underground and continues tho.

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[-] gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 22 points 9 months ago

So because it depends on Nintendo libraries, valve wanted it taken down, but valve doesn't represent nintendo and the project isn't by them or on steam, so who's actually at risk of being sued and why?

If Nintendo asked the developer to stop using Nintendo stuff I'd get it, but in that case it was never legal to begin with and the developer knew they had no license to use those libraries, so why all of a sudden does the developer not want to continue at the request of valve, are they an employee of valve or something? This is super weird, its not even a nintendo IP

[-] archomrade@midwest.social 12 points 9 months ago

Pure speculation:

Nitendo is one of the most notorious copyright litigators in the industry, it would not surprise me if they objected to the use of their libraries and pressured valve to exercise their ownership of the IP to shut it down

I know nothing about this, so honestly don't listen to me. But Nitendo is a huge joykill so I'm happy just assuming it's at least partly their fault

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

So because it depends on Nintendo libraries, valve wanted it taken down, but valve doesn’t represent nintendo and the project isn’t by them or on steam, so who’s actually at risk of being sued and why?

Valve is happy to allow fan creations when they are on Steam. Valve doesn't want such things outside of Steam and used a sock puppet to save face.

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[-] yamanii@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

My bet is that Valve doesn't like it when you reproduce their games using the same name, since both this and TF2 source 2 got hit, but we also got an original portal mod on steam last week, and Black Mesa is a monetized remake of HL1 that exists on steam.

Hell there are dozens of mods and expansions available directly on steam with their own store page instead of workshop.

[-] dan1101@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago

If the name is the problem and Valve wants to be cool they could just say that.

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[-] rdri@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Just read the article. It's about Nintendo.

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[-] fidodo@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Why not just call it something else? Valve doesn't own the concept of portals. Swap out the models and textures and then accidentally release a separate conversation mod when the project is done.

[-] BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

It sounds from the article like the ultimate issue is use of Nintendo IP, not Valve's.

Though I've never understood why Nintendo is so authoritarian about its IP.

[-] Soggy@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Not just Nintendo, it's a Japanese thing. (Not to suggest it's unique to them, just look at Disney.)

[-] Cqrd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 9 months ago

Nintendo is scared shitless of getting their IP rights taken from them by allowing general usage. For instance, they absolutely hated that old thing where any old person would call any game console a Nintendo because if Nintendo became a generic word for console they'd lose protections for it.

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[-] Walop@sopuli.xyz 6 points 9 months ago

Valve has been quite supportive of fan projects like Black Mesa and Delta Particles and only demanding to remove Half-Life from the name to protect their trademark. But I guess they don't want to risk involving Nintendo.

[-] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

This blows. Lawyers ruin everything

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