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Valve has been one of the few gaming companies that has been in good terms with the gaming community for most people. Their customer service and Steam support has been one of the best so far, and their success and support for the Steam Deck system has been also received fairly well worldwide.

On January 10th, 2024, Valve issued a DMCA takedown to the GitHub repository for the "Team Fortress 2: Source 2" project, which aimed to Team Fortress 2 into the Source 2 engine, the same engine that powers games like Half-Life: Alyx and Counter Strike 2. The takedown seems to have taken place due to porting and redistributing Team Fortress 2's assets into the Source 2 engine without permission, as stated in the DMCA notice on GitHub:

The original copyrighted work is Valve's game Team Fortress 2 ("TF2").

The TF2 assets have been ported to Source 2 without permission and are being redistributed by Amper Software in a game mode for Facepunch's S@box. Facepunch has not licensed any Valve assets for S@box. The unauthorized porting and redistributing of Valve's assets without a license violates Valve's IP.

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To make matters worse for TF2: S2, the project was undergoing an engine rewrite, and the takedown appeared in a time where the current source code for the engine is all but unusable, effectively killing the project in its entirety.

Sadly, "Team Fortress 2: Source 2" isn't the only project that has been taken down by Valve.

Another highly praised fan project based on a Valve IP has been the technologically impressive "Portal 64", which aimed to recreate the entirety of Portal 1 into the Nintendo 64 as a fully developed game that could run on the original hardware. The fan game had just received a new updated this past January 5th, 2024, titled "Portal 64: First Slice", which saw 13 of the 19 test chambers from the original game fully playable up to that point.

This also caught Valve's attention, and it prompted action from the company towards this project. However, unlike the Team Fortress 2: Source 2 DMCA takedown, this takedown seems to have been caused due to the project's usage of "Nintendo's proprietary libraries", as mentioned by the project developer, James Lambert, on his latest Patreon post:

So I have been in communication with Valve about the future of the project. There is some news and it isn’t good.

Because the project depends on Nintendo’s proprietary libraries, they have asked me to take the project down. I am letting all you know before so you can choose to withdraw your support before the next payment cycle. I do still plan on continuing the channel. I have plans to do VR powered by the N64, a computer that runs on air pressure, and some other ideas kicking around in my head.

I understand if you no longer support the channel but if you do stick around let me know what sorts of projects you would like to see. I may start a new game of my own or continue to find interesting ways to push N64 hardware. I haven’t entirely decided what I will do yet.

Also, but (sic) sure to generate the latest ROM before I take the ROM patcher down.

The ROM patcher for Portal 64 is still up at the time of writing, so those that still want to get the latest and final version of the Portal 64 project, can still do so before the ROM patcher for the project gets taken down in its entirety.

Team Fortress 2: Source 2 DMCA
James Lambert's Patreon

 

[tech3475]

Depending on the specifics of the DMCA for Portal 64, if it was purely down to the libraries, in theory couldn't they just remove any Nintendo code and require the user to provide them?

IIRC you already need to provide Portal assets to compile.

Well it seems that Gabe Newell needs sensory deprivation tank therapy.

Apparently he's more of a figurehead these days.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

Me watching people come to the realization that Valve are shit.
They have been for over a decade now.

 

[linuxares]

Linuxares, you do realize that some of the very famous games on Steam are games that depend on or have depended on modding/copying Valve games & assets, right? And up until now, they have done nothing but being fine with it because in the end, they made more profit from those projects in the end.

Yes, yes I do. But that's called MODDING. This was porting the game to a different engine. Source 2 doesn't have "game mounting" as Source and the older engines did. So what they were doing now were more or less an 3rd party game, ripping assets straight out of TF2 and making a unofficial clone.

EDIT: Found a thread on reddit talking about it. Apparently "game mounting" is disabled for TF2 and CSGO (probably CS2 as well) so that's the big issue they probably have issues with.

 

[Chary]

Valve does a lot of good, both for the PC gaming community and for the industry. That good will shouldn't be disregarded.

It's a friendly reminder though, that at the end of the day, big corporations might do some nice things, but they're not always on the side of the little guy.

 

[duwen]

For Portal 64 a reason was at least provided. Appears to be related to the dev using the leaked SDK.

Yeah, but I don't get why Valve would "dmca" that - that's Nintendo's job!

 

[linuxares]

Valve does a lot of good, both for the PC gaming community and for the industry. That good will shouldn't be disregarded.

It's a friendly reminder though, that at the end of the day, big corporations might do some nice things, but they're not always on the side of the little guy.

Well people always forget. It's a corporation. They're here to earn money, not to be your friend.

 

[Something whatever]

Game comp are not your friend

 

[Ryab]

Yeah, but I don't get why Valve would "dmca" that - that's Nintendo's job!

Relation to the project. This exact thing happened in the past.

 

[MiiJack]

Yeah, but I don't get why Valve would "dmca" that - that's Nintendo's job!

They don't want to tarnish their relations with Nintendo.

 

[linuxares]

They don't want to tarnish their relations with Nintendo.

Can be so simple that Nintendo told them to nuke it as well.

 

[Lumstar]

Linuxares, you do realize that some of the very famous games on Steam are games that depend on or have depended on modding/copying Valve games & assets, right? And up until now, they have done nothing but being fine with it because in the end, they made more profit from those projects in the end.

This stands in contrast to how they have conducted themselves prior, and shows to me that an internal shift at Valve is happening that might seed a dark future for PC gaming if Valve too becomes corrupted like pretty much all the others are. Not that Valve is corruption or issue free of course, but they are far better than all the other options out there, and all seem to forget that they solely exist due to the kindness and willingness of their users and customerbase to tolerate their crap and pay for their products. Once this goodwill from your customers is gone, we'll see how far that gets you, and when Valve joins the rest of the dumpsterfire companies, I think it will be a turning point for a huge crowd this time.

Maybe, but you're forgetting this part.

redistributing Team Fortress 2's assets

 

[JORGETECH]

About the Portal 64 thing:

As much as I hate these kind of takedowns, I have to side with Valve here. First of all, it seems like Valve didn't DMCA the creator of Portal 64, instead, the creator contacted Valve and they said to take down the project since it uses proprietary Nintendo libraries (libultra), if that's the case then I feel it's more correct to say that Valve gave the appropriate advice to the creator so Nintendo couldn't drag both parties to court. If the project was made using a non-Nintendo SDK similar to devkitPro (I've heard libdragon could be the N64 equivalent) it would probably be fine for Valve. It's tragic to see this kind of thing happening but such is the nature of using proprietary libraries from a company known to be so litigious as Nintendo.

In another note, the creator shouldn't have made a Patreon to support the project, it's already dangerous to use Nintendo's IP without any profit, when you create a stream of revenue from that kind of project you have to understand the possible consequences (not defending Nintendo here, just saying how things are right now).

 

[RAHelllord]

Depending on the specifics of the DMCA for Portal 64, if it was purely down to the libraries, in theory couldn't they just remove any Nintendo code and require the user to provide them?

IIRC you already need to provide Portal assets to compile.

You're right in that the portal assets need to be provided by the user, however "just" removing a couple crucial libraries is a pretty big task with a project like that, particularly for one person. Ripping those out and replacing them with fully functional alternatives, likely many of which would need to be written from scratch, is almost certainly a multi-year long affair for a single person.

 

[tech3475]

You're right in that the portal assets need to be provided by the user, however "just" removing a couple crucial libraries is a pretty big task with a project like that, particularly for one person. Ripping those out and replacing them with fully functional alternatives, likely many of which would need to be written from scratch, is almost certainly a multi-year long affair for a single person.

I'm not saying to replace them with alternatives, just not supply them and require the user to supply them i.e. I'd have to download the N64 SDK myself to compile.

A comparison would be be back in the OG Xbox days where you could easily get hold of source code for say XBMC but compiled ones required going to 'the usual place' or compiling it myself.

 

[Delerious]

From what I'm seeing here, it's not even because it's an open source project, but because they're using TF2 assets. It's pretty much a similar case to some of the big Skyrim modding projects, like Skywind and Skyblivion. They are allowed to essentially remake Oblivion and Morrowind inside Skyrim, but they can't use assets from either of those games, and must recreate them. The team should try asking Valve if they can continue the project under similar conditions.

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As for Portal 64, Not sure about that one. The whole "using Nintendo's stuff" argument just doesn't hold water for me. And if that's the case, then why the hell are Valve the ones issuing the cease and desist order?

 

[PacBunnyXV07]

Wow Valve straight up #GetWrekt Portal 64.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

I'll be honest, I don't understand why people aren't doing research. I don't have the full details, but from what I've gathered, the developer behind Portal 64 utilized illegal SDK materials, libraries in this case, to make this title. It's not a matter of it being possible with or without using such things (it's not impossible using alternatives, it's just a matter of how much one is willing to learn, incorporate, and adapt to this environment, regardless of how long it takes), it's a matter of it being used period without proper legal grounds. While I don't agree with Valve in some ways, they technically aren't in the wrong here, regardless of everyone's personal opinion. Official SDK materials were used without permission, that all on its own jeopardizes any project being made with such contents. Even if you aren't supplying the assets needed in its entirety, it's still the point of you built the whole project around the source material you weren't supposed to use. Whether anyone likes it or not, that's just how the cookie crumbles, that's why we have alternative solutions to work with, it may be more time consuming and difficult to work with, however nothing is going to get any better avoiding such alternatives like the plague, and cheating the whole learning experience and process by using illegal materials to get around. The developer of this N64 variant of the game knew what they were doing, this is playing with fire, they got lucky it wasn't Nintendo themselves after them for using their official stuff, so the burn is mild in this case, they knew it could backfire, and that's probably why they didn't even try to fight it, because they already knew the consequences if they got caught. Don't play stupid games guys and gals, and you won't need to worry about the consequences.

As for the Team Fortress 2 stuff, no idea on that part yet, I have no say.

 

[gnmmarechal]

That's unfortunate, would've liked to see these projects completed.

 

[k7ra]

They should make portal mod 64 and then say that it was a mod for n64!

 

[genxor]

To me this reads (at least partially) that even Valve are scared of Nintendo's lawyers