Garry’s Mod developer Facepunch Studios says it’s in the process of removing all Nintendo-related content from Steam Workshop after receiving a takedown request from Nintendo. Earlier this year, Facepunch responded to other takedown notices from Nintendo but determined that those were the work of a fraudster. However, this latest takedown has been confirmed to be legitimate, though the process of removing all Nintendo content could take a while.
Facepunch Studios announced via a post on Steam that it will slowly begin removing Nintendo-related content from Garry’s Mod, though noted that the process will take some time as they have to sift through 20 years of uploads. “If you want to help us by deleting your Nintendo related uploads and never uploading them again, that would help us a lot,” said Facepunch in a statement, urging the creators of Nintendo content to remove their uploads in order to speed up the removal process.
The biggest surprise about the Garry’s Mod takedown was how long Nintendo actually took to issue it, considering that most of the content had been online in the sandbox title for about 20 years at this point. This has raised discussions about the legality of mods and what’s considered fair to use or not. Skyrim, for example, is flooded with mods – some of them Nintendo-related too – that can arguably be hit on the same grounds.
It’s no secret that Nintendo is very protective over its intellectual properties and content. Last year, the company shut down popular Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu, eventually settling the lawsuit for $2.4 million. As a result, Yuzu’s creators Tropic Haze had to pull the software from the official website and remove all traces of it online. Tropic Haze was also responsible for the Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra – one of the very few 3DS emulators that were moderately functional – which they also had to pull offline.
Source: Facepunch Studios
