Garry's Mod Is Removing Nintendo-Related Content In Acknowledgement Of The Company's Wishes (Maybe...)

Stop ruining things for us, Nintendo!

Recently, there have been notable removals of Nintendo-related content from the Steam Workshop for Garry's Mod. This action was initiated by Nintendo themselves, signaling their stance on the use of their intellectual property within the sandbox game/platform that has existed since 2006.

Obviously, Nintendo holds the rights to their content and has the authority to dictate its usage (from a legal standpoint).

In response to Nintendo's takedowns, people aren’t happy. Facepunch Studios has acknowledged that it’s fair that Nintendo maintains control over how their assets are utilized, even within fan-made creations like those in Garry's Mod.

That said, the removal process is ongoing, given the extensive backlog of Nintendo-related uploads accumulated over the past two decades. To expedite this process, creators are encouraged to voluntarily remove any Nintendo-related uploads and refrain from re-uploading them in the future.

That said, there's been an unusual run of DMCA claims against projects and some speculate that these aren't actually coming from Nintendo. Instead, the claims could be coming from someone impersonating Nintendo. Mod users feel it would be far more likely that Nintendo would contact Valve, who publishes Garry's Mod, about any claim they may have and that a claim at this point, almost 20 years after the first Nintendo items appeared in projects, seems weird.

Back in February, similar claims started popping up and after investigation (not by Valve) the claims were deemed to be false, but Facepunch seems to be taking the current round seriously, despite fans reaching out to assist in more investigation.

Facepunch founder Garry Newman has said the team is investigating and would obviously take any claims from Nintendo seriously, but that they can't let others just abuse the DMCA system either.

Yes, we have got your emails and dms, we have seen your theads, we're doing our own investigations. We need to take these things seriously (particularly from Nintendo), but we also can't let people misuse DMCA takedowns.

— garry (@garrynewman) April 25, 2024