Nintendo removes nearly 20 years of classic mod content

Putting its lawyers to work once again, the Japanese company demanded that everything related to its properties be removed from the game

Nintendo once again showed that it is not afraid to use its lawyers to protect its intellectual properties, this time going after one of the titles that had been on Steam for the longest time. Garry’s Moda game that allows players to invent whatever they want, received a notification to take down content that had been there for 20 years related to the Japanese company.

Garry’s Mod is a sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios, in which the player can use various elements to manipulate and create videos or whatever they want. Launched in 2006 on Steam, the game has several items and elements that were sent by players, several of which are owned by other companies, such as Nintendo, which after so long, didn’t really like the idea.

Nintendo forgives nothing

Players began to notice that elements of the workshop Garry’s Mod, where the downloadable add-ons are located, were disappearing. It didn’t take long for Facepunch Studios itself to make a statement within Steam.

“Some of you may have noticed that certain Nintendo-related workshop items were recently removed. This was not an error, these removals were at Nintendo’s request,” the studio representative confirmed.

“Honestly, that’s fair. This is Nintendo’s content and what they allow or don’t allow is their right. They don’t want you playing with their stuff on Garry’s Mod — this is their decision, we will respect it and remove everything we can.”

Facepunch Studios concluded by stating that this process should take some time, as there are practically 20 years of content that they need to review to remove. The studio asks fans who have uploaded Nintendo-related items to delete them and never send them to the workshop again, as this would help them a lot.

Nintendo lawyers don’t stop working

Nintendo is well known for having the “nervous finger” to ask for a visit from its friendly process to all those who use its intellectual properties in some way. Although some cases seem fairer, such as the situation with the developers of the Yuzu emulator, which emulated Nintendo Switch games. The developers received a fine of more than US$2 million and the emulator and its servers have been removed from the internet.

Other cases border on the absurd, such as the case against 54-year-old Canadian programmer Gary Bowser, who was arrested and must pay up to 30% of his monthly salary to Nintendo to cover damages valued at 14 million dollars. Gary was part of a group that distributed Nintendo game ROMs. According to an interview with The Guardian newspaper, he states that he was not involved with distribution and only maintained the website.

Bowser was imprisoned from February 2022 until early 2024, but has already accepted that he will pay his debt to Nintendo for the rest of his life. The Japanese company had a net profit of US$1.85 billion in 2023.

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