Valve has just taken down two amazing projects, Portal 64 and Team Fortress: Source 2. This is a bit shocking as Valve has always supported modders.
While we were discussing the project's future internally recently, we already came to the conclusion to stop the development of the project due to the current state of the code being unusable anymore with s&box's recent major engine changes, and that we overall moved on from it.
— Team Fortress: Source 2 (@TeamFortressS2) January 10, 2024
Team Fortress: Source 2 aimed to to remake, improve, iterate, and create a new Team Fortress experience on Source 2 engine. On the other hand, Portal 64 aimed to demake the first Portal game for the Nintendo 64.
Portal 64, an open source N64 demake of Portal was also taken down by Valve.
This is unheard of coming from the company known for helping people with their IPs pic.twitter.com/BrQOIR5sCU
— Joey (@JoeyCheerio) January 10, 2024
According to the DMCA letters, Team Fortress 2: Source had assets from Team Fortress 2 being ported to Source 2 without permission. Plus, these assets were being redistributed by Amper Software in a game mode for Facepunch’s S@box. So, this takedown notice does make sense. Amper Software could have easily avoided it by simply removing all the original assets of TF2.
About Portal 64, Valve said the project was using Nintendo’s proprietary libraries, and that’s a no-go. I’m not sure why, but that’s the reason Valve gave.
So, that’s why we always say, grab those mods, remakes, and demakes as soon as we share them. In both situations, no one saw Valve coming to take them down. But, well, that’s exactly what went down.
And that is that. Let’s now hope that other promising mods will not receive any DMCA letters. And for God’s sake. Stop using copyrighted materials in your projects. If you want to demake or remake a game, avoid using its original assets. That’s one of the reasons why CryZENx’s Ocarina of Time UE5 Remake is still around.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
I told everyone VALVe are scum, finally people will see it now hopefully.
Care to explain how they’re scum? Just because they make a few bad choices and don’t bother to make games anymore doesn’t make them a bad company.
Although the majority of my purchases are tied to Steam, I’ve been buying them exclusively on GOG ever since their Galaxy client released. I actually like the concept of being able to own the stuff I buy. You can assume whatever you want but that only makes you irrational and difficult to deal and perhaps it’s something you may also realise in the future.
1) I agree but I do love the idea of owning DRM-free games but also having the benefits of being able to do things like storing my save files on the cloud, observing my playtime, unlocking achievements, chatting, etc. GOG Galaxy offers all of that which is great. Steam on the other hand do provide developers/publishers the option to go DRM-free while allowing them to maintain the Steamworks functionality, but most of them just choose to not go down that route. If Valve out of nowhere decided to enforce a mandatory DRM-free policy then all the major publishers in the world would instantly pull out from their services and the result of that would be devastating. The mass majority of us aren’t stupid. We all know a lot of these corporations no longer believe that their customers have any rights to the licenses they buy.
2) This is an age-old problem and nobody has bothered to complain about it since. One can say that it’s part of the whole security measure and that they’re following procedures enforced by the law but it’s nothing I care about to be honest. The moment you make an online account anywhere on the internet you’re intentionally or unintentionally aware that you’re providing them information which you have no control over. Even if you were to uncheck any of those consent forms to prevent any of your personal information from being shared I still think information will find its way to these companies, whether or not it’s intentionally done by them.
3) HL:A was a spin-off and prequel. Still, people would naturally expect to play in the shoes of Gordon Freeman if a true sequel were to come about. However, Valve hasn’t made a traditional FPS story-driven game in so long and once they do and end up continuing the story arc of the HL universe, only then we can judge on what we see. Right now now you’re off on a tangent about a “what if” scenario which is pointless.
4) Fair enough, I’ll give you that one. It is a problem that these companies are exploiting their customers in order to make easy money but you still have the choice to not support this kind of behaviour. We have a handful of choices when it comes to alternatives and you can always just play the classic iterations from the series if you truly crave for that. And another way of making those games feel new is by looking into custom maps. Sure, it’s not the same as playing something that’s truly new and refreshing but you can’t really expect any of these corporations to change when profit is their main goal. Indie games are the only ones at this rate who are making the kind of experiences you expect out of companies like Valve.
5) I’ve never really gotten into CS. Only played it a few times in my life. But again, if you feel like they’ve ruined the franchise you can just revert to the older games in the series and just play those until the next best thing comes out that can make up for what’s lost in CS today. If the latest entry has been watered down then I would expect the eSports community to rally behind your stance but it appears that they’re content with what’s going on. Unless you believe that these guys aren’t genuine pros and have no clue on what a good CS game is then there’s not a whole lot I can say about this.
I think complaining about Valve’s insecurity is a bit of a reach. Like any other businesses who care the most about making money, they don’t necessarily have any respect or care for how the series may have started. I don’t think Gabe loses sleep at night thinking to himself why he couldn’t come up with CS himself. He owns the damn property man. And I also doubt many people are aware of where CS originated from or who even made the game to begin with. The problem about you is that you’re making too many assumptions. Your theories are just that: theories. Everything about how Valve are bitter and so on appears to be projections.
I see you’re a lot less smart than you feel, you are what is known as a “midwit” , your comment reeks redditor.
People like you are the reason VALVe get away with the stuff they get away with.
Have you ever had a genuine self-thought in your entire life?
I rarely ever go on Reddit and when I do it’s subreddits like KotakuInAction. I’m always trying to stay up to date with all the corpo nonsense going on and I really do not give a damn on how you perceive me as. You’re a nobody to me and yet somehow I feel sorry for you. You’re clearly a bitter dude and I hope you’re able to find some solace in your life one day.
Holy mother of midwit…am i a nobody to you or do you care so much about me that you wish you find slace in my life one day? i would say make up your mind but you dont have a mind.
You are an npc.
My god you have issues. Holy sh*t.
Switch to Epic NOW”!!
As far as the DMCA on TF2 they are just protecting their copyright. Imagine if you spent your time and money making something and copyrighted it and I came along and copied part of your work without even bothering to ask your permission first. What would you do? If you issued a DMCA on me and I called you scum do you think you would really be scum for doing that? If you did nothing then more people would be encouraged to copy your work.
I don’t think Valve is great anymore since they abandoned making more excellent single player games like Half Life and Portal and my opinion of them is down a bit more because Steam is allowing the site to be used as a dumping ground for sh*t games and the number is growing by the thousands year after year.
But I don’t think Valve is anything close to scum.
No, Valve’s bootlickers on various sites were spamming that Valve is pro-modding, Valve doesn’t care about profits, Valve loves gamers, etc. This incident proves my longstanding assertion: both Valve and Epic, despite the rhetoric, are corpos devoid of camaraderie; neither can be deemed anyone’s friend.
Anyone that says Valve doesn’t care about profits is full of sh*t. Every business cares about profits. That’s why they are in business to begin with. A company (excluding charities) that doesn’t care about profits eventually goes out of business.
As far as Valve loving gamers that’s BS too. They see us the same way that every business sees us. As a source of revenue.
I owned a business for years. I cared about giving a better service than other competing businesses wherever possible to grow my business which I did very nicely but make no mistake, I was in it for the money. I’m sure my employees appreciated that as well so they could have good paying jobs.
So what does it make Black Mesa and Co then?
Well if it’s proven they included proprietary stuff then fine. But in general these huge companies just abuse the system which is all about money when it comes to takedowns and their fellow megacorps oblige them without any proof largely, gangsterism. If the legal system wasn’t a farce and really just a wing of the system it would have done something long long ago about this abuse, money to have a legal army shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Again I’m not commenting directly about this but to be able to do this without independent verification and proof but just essentially bullying is awful.
Well done Valve, stopping that evil
piratenerd sellingthousands7 of that home made portal 2.Its abandonware, Valve didnt do anything with portal IP (and all of their valuable IP) for more than a decade… They just sit on top of our money and didnt do anything except when they wanted to sell their stuff (ehmm… Alyx) while their fanboys sucking when other outlet funding or making a technological breakthrough games like Epic with Alan Wake 2. In the other hand they never looking at the only gold standard of selling digital goods done by GOG in the name of ‘convenience’ (which is mostly just a made up term)
If you had actually bothered to read the article you’d see that the Portal takedown was perfectly understandable. Do I like it? No, but given how litigious happy Nintendo it’s better to cover their a**es.
Its crazy that valve doesnt do anything with all the money they have. They literally are richer than the guys at Star Citizen… and what do they make with that money? Nothing.
“About Portal 64, Valve said the project was using Nintendo’s proprietary libraries, and that’s a no-go. I’m not sure why, but that’s the reason Valve gave.”
Given how infamously aggressive Nintendo is, I’d be shocked if this wasn’t true: even just using the phrase “64” would probably be enough to get a letter.
Nintendo is a dead platform rip. Has been since the late 90’s.
nintendo 64 was the last great system. everything after had the same copy pasted garbage games with no new innovations
Delusional or just uninformed.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a282a377404e011df2a855c53f1b531826d9d5e788b753c06c812ca498f18d3.png
I don’t think people realize just how dominant Nintendo Switch is.
PS5 and Xbox are rounding errors, no one wants them outside of a few CoD/Fortnite players who are too stupid to build a PC. Playstation and Xbox are fighting each other for leftovers.
Why do you think everyone is now trying to make handhelds. Because Nintendo is making billions. It also puts into perspective how little the average gamer cares about advanced graphics. Make good games and the platform will sell.
No one wants Sony’s and Xbox’s their “cinematic experiences”. Nintendo is actually making games and will take the little marketshare Xbox and Playstation have left when Switch 2 comes out.
They are far from dead. I just had a look at their Financial Statement for Fiscal Year ending in March 2023. I converted Yen to USD:
11 billion dollars in revenue
3.5 billion dollars profit
Fiscal 2024 is showing even better numbers so far.
Nintendo Switch sales are about 132 million units and growing.
My guess? They’re likely working on an official Source 2 engine update for TF2.
+1 this has been theorized since they made twitter announcements of things coming for TF2 after having been dark for so long.
Easy way to avoid DMCA takedowns: don’t use IP that isn’t yours.
Duh, i guess.
And yet people always get upset when this happens
Because it’s such an @sshole move. I’m curious to see how Stalker 2 will sell in the future, to see if the first game going open source have a positive or negative effect on the game success.
Disagree. Some might see it as an ahole move to use someone else’s IP without permission, especially if it’s for profit. There’s no way you go into that without realizing the risk of a DMCA takedown.
I coudn’t care less about a concept as stupid as “intellectual property”. We humans are made to copy each other.
You’d feel differently if you ever created something of value, lol.
Who knows? We do have our hypocrisies, some more than others. I mean look at us arguing about IP rights using vg avatars created by others, it does have a certain irony to it, the freedom loving hero vs the pharmaceutical mutated bouncer.
Would be different if I modified it and then disseminated it as my own creation now wouldn’t it? Especially for profit. But then again I get the feeling you’re being facetious due to having lost the argument lol. Good day sir.
How does one lose an argument just by sharing a different worldview? I bet you blocked him after this exchange, at least you get to feel like you’ve won, lol.
Look ma, an obvious alt account! Lmao.
You lost, get over it.
All the talent these modders/developers have, and they chose to use an IP from another dev instead of creating something new and original. Bummer.
It’s a gamble, work on a beloved franchise so you can be famous as well, or work on just another new project out of thousands and hope it pays off.
That’s true, but at least you can be proud for making something that is your own. I see it that way at least.
I don’t know, i think the Black mesa devs are probably proud for their remake, for example.
Well, that I can not argue with.
You best draw that line real thick though, Half-Life was made with Quake’s Engine.
Yes, but they made something new from that engine. So no, it’s not the same.
If they took the Source 2 engine (for example) to create something new, sure, but you’re comparing apples with oranges.
Besides, not only Valve licensed the use of the Quake and Quake II engines, but they’re used code of their own, and I think I talk for everyone when I say Half-Life IS (or was) something new and unique.
They can always use the “inspired by an awesome game from the 1990s, a nostalgia trip and a blast from the past!” trick when marketing your game to get the brain dead normie gayme journalists to cover your game, it’ll always work.
And you think they don’t? There’s too many games already, a fan game can land you a job with developers and plenty of eyeballs from fans.
Meanwhile if you browse Steam workshop, there a ton of ripped content from AAA games.
I don`t think this kind of argument is useful. Sure steam is hypocrites, but you want them to correct their hypocrisy by going full Take 2 on modders?
“Half-Life is a product” – Gaben circa 2002
I still have PTSD seeing that for the first time.
if you dont own hl2 you can still play hl2 mods steam will just install source engine and its assets for you to play them, so this is weird.
Valve:
-made microtransactions mainstream on PC
-made DRM mainstream on PC
-prevents developers from selling games cheaper on other stores
-is currently being sued by developers for abusing their market dominance
Valve and and their Steam store full of DRM trash, suck.
Most of us saw that coming when half life 2 was released just on steam back in 2007.
Most of us saw that coming when half life 2 was released just on steam back in 2007.
Prevents developers from selling games cheaper on other stores ? Looking at regional pricing steam is still selling games at much reasonable prices compared to other 5h*** stores. In third world countries buying games is not that easy soo regional pricing really comes in handy and GOG games cost sometimes double what to what it costs on steam. Valve does not forces DRM on any game, its up to the developers. Just because they allow DRM on games does not mean they made DRM mainstream on PC. Many games on GOG are also DRM free even on steam e.g. postal 2. You can run it even without steam.
Steam is DRM ….. If the game adds it’s own DRM then you have two layers of DRM when you buy the game on Steam
As i said its up to the developers to add drm or not or just use the steam drm. Speaking of steam drm its literally a joke. It just exists for for online features. Many games even on steam don’t require steam in order to boot the game straight from the exe just like it is on GOG. Its developers choice ultimately.
“And for God’s sake. Stop using copyrighted materials in your projects.If you want to demake or remake a game, avoid using its original assets.”
– Why this isnt rule no.1 when working on mods is beyond me.
And regarding Nintendo, as Peacemaker would say ‘they can go suck a a bag of d*cks’. I have zero interest or f*cks to give, for anything nintendo related.
And regarding Valve, dont fool yourself, they have never been the warm cosy game company that people beleive them to be. They are just has litigous and narcaistic as all the others. Should a game I legally paid for get removed or have any consumer unfriendly bollox, I am gratefull that I can still set sail on the high seas.
Nice. I am curious to see the responses from Valve’s bootlickers who were spamming around that Valve loves gamers and doesn’t care about profit.
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How the mighty have fallen. They used fans to make money, but i guess nowadays it`s just spare change to them.