Update: Garry Newman has issued another tweet confirming that the takedown request against Nintendo-themed content in the Garry’s Mod Steam workshop is legitimate.
“I have been assured that the takedowns have been verified by Nintendo as legit, so this will now continue as planned,” Newman says on Twitter. “Sorry.” The message concludes with a series of emojis suggesting you should throw your mushrooms in the trash.
Despite Newman’s assurances, many community members remain convinced that the takedowns were issued by some kind of copyright troll. But, well, I’d expect the Garry of Garry’s Mod to have a better grasp of the situation than the peanut gallery in the comments.
Original story: Garry’s Mod dev and Facepunch Studios founder Garry Newman has responded to rumors that the DMCA takedowns against the sandbox game’s Nintendo-related content were not actually issued by Nintendo, and says the team is investigating the situation.
Yesterday, Facepunch published a post on Steam in which it said it was working on “removing all Nintendo related stuff from Steam Workshop,” with a whopping “20 years of uploads to go through.” At the time, the developer said that the removal of certain Nintendo items up to this point “is not a mistake, the takedowns came from Nintendo,” but added that this was “fair enough” and “we have to respect” Nintendo’s decision.
However, in the hours since, some fans have begun to question the legitimacy of the DMCA takedowns and if they actually came from Nintendo in the first place. With many asking Facepunch to look into the matter, Newman has responded, saying the team is already on it.
“Yes, we have got your emails and DMs, we have seen your threads, we’re doing our own investigations,” Newman writes. “We need to take these things seriously (particularly from Nintendo), but we also can’t let people misuse DMCA takedowns.”
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.April 25, 2024
At the time of writing, it’s not known how long this investigation will last for or what the outcome will end up being, but for now, there’s still an enormous amount of Nintendo-related content available to download via the Steam Workshop. Whether this is because the developers have temporarily halted takedown efforts or if it’s just because there’s so much content to deal with is another matter, with over 1,200 different uploads listed at the time of writing when you simply search ‘Nintendo.’
In fact, there are still over 5,500 uploads under the search term ‘Mario,’ which has reduced slightly since last night, but not by much. If Facepunch’s investigation confirms that these takedown efforts do have to continue, there’s a lot of work ahead of the developers.
If you’re looking for more games to dive into, be sure to check out our roundup of the top 25 best PC games.