2y ago

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

www.pcgamer.com

Honestly, a bit surprised by this. It wasn't even on Steam. Hopefully switching to an open source SDK will get this back up.

Nintendo @lemmy.world

picandocodigo @lemmy.world

2y ago

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

www.pcgamer.com /that-portal-64-demake-we-liked-so-much-has-been-kiboshed-by-valve-they-have-asked-me-to-take-the-project-down-creator-says/

131 comments

"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?
- 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.
  
  It's a bit like if Metallica had just embraced Napster
- I 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.
- Wasn’t it taken down at Valve’s request, not Nintendo’s demand?
  
  Yes, but mainly because Valve doesn't want to deal with Nintendo's lawyers since it used their libraries.
  
  Officially yes. We have no idea if Nintendo sent a private email saying "please figure this out before we do."
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!
- Apparently even Valve's lawyers don't like dealing with Nintendo's lawyers.
  
  I mean... Tbf, they are kinda dicks, so yeah, I get it.
  
  If there's anything I've learned from my interactions with my local (city) government, it's that staff lawyers are lazy fucks who won't lift a finger to do what's clearly the right thing without somebody else that has power whipping them along.
It sucks but I also wouldn’t want to get involved with Nintendos lawyers so I can’t blame Steam.
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.
- I don't think thats how it works for copyright. You have to defend your trademarks to keep them but for copyright, you can decide who can use it rather arbitralily.
  Especially allowing a release of an old game on platform you don't support which would not really compete with you.
  
  It’s not about whether it competes. It’s about whether a “reasonable person” could confuse it for being an authorized product of the IP owner. In this case, people could confuse it with both a licensed Nintendo product (since it runs on original hardware) and it could be confused with an official Valve release (since the content is an exact (as possible) recreation of the levels and assets from the original game.
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
- 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.
  
  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
  
  A demake is a video game remake on an older platform, or one which converts the game to an older graphical or gameplay style.
  TIL
- They also likely have a touchy relationship right now considering the removal of dolphin.
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.
- 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).
  
  Valve is actually one of the companies that treats fan projects very well
  Well, not this fan project…
  
  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.
  
  Guess you didn't hear about TF2 in Source 2.
  
  Nah, he's good
  
  Valve is actually one of the companies that treats fan projects very well,
  Except when they don't feel like it. See "Team Fortress: Source 2". https://www.shacknews.com/article/138260/team-fortress-source-2-cancelled-dmca
- 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.
  
  lol “the smart move is to make 2 games before you release one”
  No shit
  Any other nuggets of wisdom? “The even smarter move is to make 3 games before you release one”?
- Along with that, contribute to Free Software games instead of working for free to improve commercial for-profit ones.
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
- 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
- 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.
- Maybe if he gets permission from Nintendo he could keep going
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.
- 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.
  
  Classified?
  
  Wait but why is Valve involved at all, then? Not like it's their fault that some people they have nothing to do with are building a game based on those APIs, so shouldn't Nintendo approach the developers of the port directly instead?
  
  Right, but what the heck is up with Nintendo clinging into ancient obsolete stuff? They're not stupid right?
  
  I may be overinterpreting this but it almooost seems, if you stretch it a bit, as if valve saved poor guys. Valve said stop, Nintendo'd say pay up.
- 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...
  
  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.
  
  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.
- Why would a grown ass adult put so much effort into an unlicensed dupilcation of copyrighted IP (Valve) and build it on top of a system from a company known for ridiculous enofrcement of IP that had a walled garden of access to their game system IP that is protected by the copyright cabal supported DMCA?
  There's more sides and nuance to all of this.
  He could've made Portal in the style of a 90s console instead of directly declaring it N64 and only had to tend with permission for it as a mod from Valve's sometimes permissive pov without crazy assed 'Tendo being involved.
  
  Because that's cool as fuck.
  If he did it your way, that defeats the purpose of the constraints in the exercise.
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.
- If the name is the problem and Valve wants to be cool they could just say that.
  
  Legal teams. Not there to be cool, there to shut things down. Chances are that team bypassed the folks that make the cool decisions. So there is a chance this could be changed when the right person catches wind.
  This wouldn't be the first time. I have dim memories of this sort of thing happening before. Just not quite sure on the details.
  
  That’s not the only problem, I think. It’s not an adaptation of their work, it’s a “demake” which means it uses original source files or, at best, exact recreations of that work. The other projects people are comparing this to adapted Valve’s work to make something original. This isn’t original and uses the existing name. It would be very easy for Valve to make the claim that this product could be confused as an official Valve product even if most people who are interested would know the difference or be able to tell.
- Black Mesa also had to change its name one time iirc. It was originally being developed as Black Mesa: Source, and Valve told them to drop the "Source" part.
  Watching Black Mesa development was really neat, because it kept getting delayed, then they stopped updating fans while insisting it was still in development, and we'd all pretty much decided it was never getting finished.
  Then it came finally came out and was so good Valve let them license and sell it.
- Valve has stated that they are okay with people making mods using their property, as long as they either openly state that they are not Valve, and do not use Valves IP in their names unless they ask for permission by Valve, which they will give in many cases. They are more strict when it comes to commercial games using their IP, of course. I think in the case of Portal 64 though, it definitely has to do with Nintendo's ridiculously over the top protection of their copyrights.
- Just read the article. It's about Nintendo.
- Black Mesa was also limited by valve in some minor ways
  I remember being at PAX East in 2019 before COVID, and they had a booth there. They had big box copies of Black Mesa which I thought was really cool, I wanted to buy one just to have on display. But they said valve actually said they weren't allowed to sell them. It was only for a promotional purposes at the booth.
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.
- 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.
  
  Not just Nintendo, it's a Japanese thing. (Not to suggest it's unique to them, just look at Disney.)
  
  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.
  
  The ridiculous thing is that if I recall correctly this game isn't using Nintendo IP. It's just trying to run on outdated Nintendo hardware. Come to think of it is Nintendo trying to copyright low poly art styles.
  
  While the ultimate issue is Nintendo's IP, obviously you can't remove Nintendo's IP in this case since it's for the N64, so the only other option is to remove valves. I understand why valve doesn't want to implicitly endorse an N64 game with their IP by saying nothing, but if they remove valves IP then all that's left is a generic N64 hobby project which Nintendo wouldn't bother acknowledging.
  
  Because that is all they got. Even if they make some profit on the sale of the hardware, it is peanuts compared to the game and tie-in sales. Losing control of even a single IP would be a serious hit to them.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i13hrynnGNY
  
  It sounds from the article like the ultimate issue is use of Nintendo IP, not Valve’s.
  But it wasn't Nintendo of America who issued the takedown. It was Valve and they don't represent Nintendo.
- Swap out the models and textures and then accidentally release a separate conversation mod when the project is done.
  And audio. The GLADOS monologues are in as well.
This blows. Lawyers ruin everything
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.
No surprise, but hopefully they can figure something out with Valve
Dang anyone got a demo dl link before it was taken down?
- Lmk if you find it. I bought an everdrive just to play it and now it's gone ;-;
It wasn't even on Steam
That's why it was taken down. Valve needs their cut.
- Til valve gets a "cut" from free downloads
  
  How the fuck is that what you got from my comment.

131 comments