3 ms·

Nintendo forces Garry's Mod to delete 20 years of content

96 points by freedomben 3y ago

kamray23 3y ago
wow that's really evil of them i quite don't like them for this as i too played garrys mod back in the day and it pains me to see such a loss of community effort and beloved mods
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  It's not like they're demanding the deletion of all mod content as the headline carelessly implies. Yes it's boring and corporate but I don't think it rises to the level of 'evil.'
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 3y ago
    Why not? Destroying harmless creativity and amusement culture is evil.
Dalewyn 3y ago
>The sandbox game is known for the massive workshop of user-made creations, which Nintendo took issue with when it discovered years' worth of ripped Nintendo assets in-game. Sounds fair to me.
- kibwen 3y ago
  It is possible for something to be well within their legal rights while also being what is colloquially known as "a dick move". It costs Nintendo absolutely, positively nothing and nada to allow random Garry's Mods to use models ripped from their games. This action is beneficial to nobody, anywhere.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    Trademarks must be actively defended to be maintained. Nintendo has to either do this or hand out free license to all of the creators. Even doing that could be used against them in the future, I suspect. Doing nothing would literally cost them their company, because without exclusive rights to Super Mario, Zelda and so forth, they're just a manufacturer of subpar hardware.
    - AlwaysRock 3y ago
      Sure. So they are pulling down 20 years of content based on their IP. So when did they start handing out free licenses? Year 21? 25?
    - cool_dude85 3y ago
      Let's chat again in 10 or 15 years and see whether every other piece of popular media ever has lost trademark rights due to not being DMCA'd out of Garry's Mod. I'm on the no side of that bet.
    - Osmose 3y ago
      Sega has long had an intentionally loose policy with regards to fanart and fan games and rarely issues takedowns for projects that don't generate profit. It doesn't seem to have hurt them at all.
      - matheusmoreira 3y ago
        Capcom too. An infinite amount of Mega Man fan games. Quite a few Mega Man bands making music, performing live. Projects that have been active for literal decades now. Do they issue silly takedowns and destroy all this culture? No, they invite them to play at their official events. It's just corporations like Nintendo that suck. It's definitely not alone in that group. We all need to stop giving them money.
        binary132 3y ago
        I feel ya, but I am sympathetic to the argument that Nintendo’s IP is uniquely valuable and their brand is globally very unique. They prize their reputation and the Nintendo authenticity seal has been a thing since forever.
datenyan 3y ago
I'm always struck by how Nintendo seems hellbent on trying to "preserve the image" of it's brand / characters / etc by performing these kinds of takedowns, but seem perfectly fine to weather the backlash from the community and fans? Garry's Mod and other similar games are how so many people get exposed to various different fan communities, characters, game-modes, and etc. that you'd think it'd essentially function as "free" marketing. There's always the question of "What happens when Mario has a gun?", but you'd really hope that people would have the mental capacity to understand that it's not an official image or marketing material.
- porcoda 3y ago
  I’d guess it’s because the size of the community that gets angry is trivially small relative to the overall customer base of Nintendo. I’d also guess that the average person whose gaming doesn’t stray much further than casually playing Animal Crossing, Zelda, or Mario doesn’t care nor notice when Nintendo does this sort of thing.
  - riversflow 3y ago
    I honestly don't blame them. Couple of reasons. First, having your assets in Garry's Mod is, in my opinion, a ticking time bomb for those assets going viral. This can be good, however in Nintendo's case their target market is kids and naturally they want tight control over the (squeaky clean) image of their characters. They have spent decades building that brand recognition and association. Second, the only people who are going to get angry about this are Turbo-nerds, and Nintendo has already turned their back on Turbo-nerds. The overlap between people who are mad about this and who were already mad about Yuzu has to be substantial. I don't know. I think this sucks, and it's particularly sucky that they just filed a DMCA action and didn't contact the developer directly. I feel bad for Gary. All in all, it seems that they want to send a message that messing with The Plumber is just about as bad as messing with The Mouse.
    - matheusmoreira 3y ago
      I seriously hope these "turbonerds" as you call them wise up and start doing their thing anonymously so that the likes of Nintendo can do nothing about it.
karaterobot 3y ago
I guess the issue is that content creators ripped Nintendo assets and included them in their Garry's mod creations, is that right? Hope I didn't misread that. If so, I'm somewhat surprised that a takedown notice can be so expansive as to include all GM content, and not just individually enumerated creations. I'm sure there are dozens or hundreds of IP violating Garry's Mod creations, but also thousands that don't. If there was just one single example of a Garry's Mod user that ripped a single sprite from a single Nintendo game, would that also necessitate a takedown of everyone's content?
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  It's copyright, the DMCA as well as expensive american courts and lawyers. Logic need not apply. Just send your take down and be confident that the other guy will submit to your will simply because he does not want to pay the costs associated with fighting it in court. Even when they win in court, they lose because they went bankrupt while the budgets of the likes of Nintendo and Sony were barely scratched.
  - spxneo 3y ago
    Does this mean all the game modes are gone? TTT, Zombie Run, Theater? Garry's mod remains the best bang for buck in terms of replayability and fun. many many hours were spent on TTT
    - lelandbatey 3y ago
      It's not "everything", it's only the Nintendo-related add-ons (user uploaded content) published through Steam. So it's not all of Gmod, it's instead folks whole ripped a Mario skin and put it up as an add-on on steam.
tedunangst 3y ago
I think the ars article presents a clearer picture of what's happening. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/garrys-mod-is-taking-down-20-years-worth-of-nintendo-stuff/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/garrys-mod-is-taking-...
free_bip 3y ago
How is it even possible for them to do this? Garry's Mod doesn't host the mods, do they? I was under the impression that Steam hosted the content, so they would have to send the takedown notice to Steam, not to Facepunch.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40160275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40160275
xeonmc 3y ago
So long, Garry Browser
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
umvi 3y ago
Rules with Nintendo: 1. If making a fan made game, build it in secret and release it once it is finished. Otherwise it will suffer an early demise (see: Chrono Resurrection) 2. Don't build emulators for current gen consoles (or if you do, do it in secret). Piracy argument is much weaker if the hardware is no longer being sold. 3. Don't link any fan creations to your real or existing identities. Use throwaway accounts and brand new pseudonyms.

96 points by freedomben 3y ago

wow that's really evil of them i quite don't like them for this as i too played garrys mod back in the day and it pains me to see such a loss of community effort and beloved mods

anigbrowl 3y ago
It's not like they're demanding the deletion of all mod content as the headline carelessly implies. Yes it's boring and corporate but I don't think it rises to the level of 'evil.'
- HeatrayEnjoyer 3y ago
  Why not? Destroying harmless creativity and amusement culture is evil.

Dalewyn 3y ago

>The sandbox game is known for the massive workshop of user-made creations, which Nintendo took issue with when it discovered years' worth of ripped Nintendo assets in-game. Sounds fair to me.

kibwen 3y ago
It is possible for something to be well within their legal rights while also being what is colloquially known as "a dick move". It costs Nintendo absolutely, positively nothing and nada to allow random Garry's Mods to use models ripped from their games. This action is beneficial to nobody, anywhere.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  Trademarks must be actively defended to be maintained. Nintendo has to either do this or hand out free license to all of the creators. Even doing that could be used against them in the future, I suspect. Doing nothing would literally cost them their company, because without exclusive rights to Super Mario, Zelda and so forth, they're just a manufacturer of subpar hardware.
  - AlwaysRock 3y ago
    Sure. So they are pulling down 20 years of content based on their IP. So when did they start handing out free licenses? Year 21? 25?
  - cool_dude85 3y ago
    Let's chat again in 10 or 15 years and see whether every other piece of popular media ever has lost trademark rights due to not being DMCA'd out of Garry's Mod. I'm on the no side of that bet.
  - Osmose 3y ago
    Sega has long had an intentionally loose policy with regards to fanart and fan games and rarely issues takedowns for projects that don't generate profit. It doesn't seem to have hurt them at all.
    - matheusmoreira 3y ago
      Capcom too. An infinite amount of Mega Man fan games. Quite a few Mega Man bands making music, performing live. Projects that have been active for literal decades now. Do they issue silly takedowns and destroy all this culture? No, they invite them to play at their official events. It's just corporations like Nintendo that suck. It's definitely not alone in that group. We all need to stop giving them money.
      - binary132 3y ago
        I feel ya, but I am sympathetic to the argument that Nintendo’s IP is uniquely valuable and their brand is globally very unique. They prize their reputation and the Nintendo authenticity seal has been a thing since forever.

datenyan 3y ago

I'm always struck by how Nintendo seems hellbent on trying to "preserve the image" of it's brand / characters / etc by performing these kinds of takedowns, but seem perfectly fine to weather the backlash from the community and fans? Garry's Mod and other similar games are how so many people get exposed to various different fan communities, characters, game-modes, and etc. that you'd think it'd essentially function as "free" marketing. There's always the question of "What happens when Mario has a gun?", but you'd really hope that people would have the mental capacity to understand that it's not an official image or marketing material.

porcoda 3y ago
I’d guess it’s because the size of the community that gets angry is trivially small relative to the overall customer base of Nintendo. I’d also guess that the average person whose gaming doesn’t stray much further than casually playing Animal Crossing, Zelda, or Mario doesn’t care nor notice when Nintendo does this sort of thing.
- riversflow 3y ago
  I honestly don't blame them. Couple of reasons. First, having your assets in Garry's Mod is, in my opinion, a ticking time bomb for those assets going viral. This can be good, however in Nintendo's case their target market is kids and naturally they want tight control over the (squeaky clean) image of their characters. They have spent decades building that brand recognition and association. Second, the only people who are going to get angry about this are Turbo-nerds, and Nintendo has already turned their back on Turbo-nerds. The overlap between people who are mad about this and who were already mad about Yuzu has to be substantial. I don't know. I think this sucks, and it's particularly sucky that they just filed a DMCA action and didn't contact the developer directly. I feel bad for Gary. All in all, it seems that they want to send a message that messing with The Plumber is just about as bad as messing with The Mouse.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    I seriously hope these "turbonerds" as you call them wise up and start doing their thing anonymously so that the likes of Nintendo can do nothing about it.

karaterobot 3y ago

I guess the issue is that content creators ripped Nintendo assets and included them in their Garry's mod creations, is that right? Hope I didn't misread that. If so, I'm somewhat surprised that a takedown notice can be so expansive as to include all GM content, and not just individually enumerated creations. I'm sure there are dozens or hundreds of IP violating Garry's Mod creations, but also thousands that don't. If there was just one single example of a Garry's Mod user that ripped a single sprite from a single Nintendo game, would that also necessitate a takedown of everyone's content?

matheusmoreira 3y ago
It's copyright, the DMCA as well as expensive american courts and lawyers. Logic need not apply. Just send your take down and be confident that the other guy will submit to your will simply because he does not want to pay the costs associated with fighting it in court. Even when they win in court, they lose because they went bankrupt while the budgets of the likes of Nintendo and Sony were barely scratched.
- spxneo 3y ago
  Does this mean all the game modes are gone? TTT, Zombie Run, Theater? Garry's mod remains the best bang for buck in terms of replayability and fun. many many hours were spent on TTT
  - lelandbatey 3y ago
    It's not "everything", it's only the Nintendo-related add-ons (user uploaded content) published through Steam. So it's not all of Gmod, it's instead folks whole ripped a Mario skin and put it up as an add-on on steam.

tedunangst 3y ago

I think the ars article presents a clearer picture of what's happening. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/garrys-mod-is-taking-down-20-years-worth-of-nintendo-stuff/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/garrys-mod-is-taking-...

free_bip 3y ago

How is it even possible for them to do this? Garry's Mod doesn't host the mods, do they? I was under the impression that Steam hosted the content, so they would have to send the takedown notice to Steam, not to Facepunch.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40160275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40160275

xeonmc 3y ago

So long, Garry Browser

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

umvi 3y ago

Rules with Nintendo: 1. If making a fan made game, build it in secret and release it once it is finished. Otherwise it will suffer an early demise (see: Chrono Resurrection) 2. Don't build emulators for current gen consoles (or if you do, do it in secret). Piracy argument is much weaker if the hardware is no longer being sold. 3. Don't link any fan creations to your real or existing identities. Use throwaway accounts and brand new pseudonyms.