Portal 64 dev says “don’t be mad at Valve” for the project’s shutdown
Portal 64 dev says “don’t be mad at Valve” for the project’s shutdown
After Portal 64 was shut down, the creator of the project says "don't be mad at Valve," while diving into the difficulty of it ever coming.
Duh, people are pissed at corporate greed that’s is at the core of all cease and desist orders on fan projects. Be it from Nintendo, MS, Sony or Valve and they aren’t stopping.
Indie devs need to stop wasting their time and efforts on fan projects that will never be played by the public because of these corporations shutting them down.
Instead of wasting 300+ hours making a fan project with nothing to show but the knowledge and potential lawsuit you’ve gained, how about putting all those hours into a personal project that is inspired by the games you want to copy instead.
You could make the next Portal, Team Fortress 2 or Hit and run. Just name it something different and stop making 1 to 1 reproductions of corporate property.
Making Portal for the N64 will give you much more exposure and media attention than making just another indie game statistically likely to fail and never get any attention. The guy made a name for himself with this project. Now when he creates an original game, it will get a lot more attention for being made by the Portal 64 developer and have a much better chance to succeed.
Right. Cause we see countless games being advertised as “from the one person that made the hit and run remake”. Or “from the developer of that cancelled Mario project”.
No, the project becomes known for the controversy of being shut down and people forget about it.
We need more indie games and publishing your own indie game is worth way more than popping out another fan wank that’s likely to get you a lawsuit.
If that name was "Gimmicky", that's all I took from it honestly. Using an N64 to learn to program games is one thing, but this obsession with making full fledged games on dead consoles is just bizarre. You're catering to a very specific niche. Plenty of people see "on N64" and immediately pass by it because we have no ability or reason to play that. Most of us would have to emulate it on another device anyways, entirely defeating the purpose.
Oh, and quick questio(don't cheat): what is the dev(s) name(s)? Cus I sure as hell haven't noticed that part at all in any of the convos. Just "that guy who made".
Indie devs need to stop wasting their time and efforts on fan projects that will never be played by the public
It's not your time, let them use it how they want. Probably the fun for most is in the development.
Here's the thing, though. Just coding a game is a lot, before worrying about actually designing mechanics and managing meta-progression and writing even a basic story and world building, etc.
Making a fan project is real, concrete experience. It allows you to focus on one specific thing (actually writing the code and managing the codebase) without focusing on all those details. There's a reason most programming courses involve making simplistic clones of stuff that already exists. Many game development classes/tutorials do exactly the same, and work you through a clone of some other, pretty simple game.
That's what a fan project like this is, but it lets you focus on how a game larger in scope manages all the same problems instead of how to do it in brick breaker or whatever. It's valuable experience that's hard to replicate on a smaller project, and it's how some people learn best.
Others absolutely will do better starting small and just iteratively building up forever, but it's not the only way to learn. This approach is legitimate and for many people, better.
Now advertising it? Not a huge point of that. Unless you're actually asking people for feedback (how did they solve this problem?) and learning from example that way, you don't gain anything from telling people about it.
Now advertising it? Not a huge point of that. Unless you're actually asking people for feedback (how did they solve this problem?) and learning from example that way, you don't gain anything from telling people about it.
You get the motivation to continue; other people are looking forward to your progress and results.
You realize in this case the guy was using proprietary libraries from the N64 without Nintendo's consent in this mod? Valve would be absolutely insane not to dmca that mod. This guy kicked a hornets nest of lawyers by releasing this stuff even if his intentions were to just show the businesses what he can do. He knew what he was doing, he knew what would eventually happen, which is absolutely why he's telling people not to be mad at valve. Valve are just protecting their business in the same way Nintendo is protecting their intellectual property.
I’ll never forgive those Microsoftian bastards for shutting Halo Online down the very next day after it was released.
It's not greed, companies will literally lose their trademarks if they don't defend them
Why not just make a version of the game that is stripped of IP, then "someone" anonymously releases a conversation mod that adds in the copyrighted content?
But it makes even more sense to just do your own copycat version and actually sell it and make money off it.
Your whole point is undercut by the existence of Portal: Revolution, Portal: Mel, City of Heroes, etc. There's a way to do fan creations that's supported by the IP holders and ways not to do it.
I don't expect indie devs to be experts at the law but they can hardly be surprised if they go outside the boundaries set by the IP holders and then get a C&D.
I’m gonna guess that the legal team does these things without higher ups hearing of anything until after cease and desists have been made.
No, fuck that. Be mad at Valve for just assuming Nintendo would flip out, if Valve did literally nothing. Homebrew in general is not what Nintendo's bastard lawyers get after.
And anyone who's gonna chime in 'oh but they gotta' can save it. They do not. All of this is optional. We choose to do this, and we can just as easily choose something else. Anyone who thinks the status quo demands evil and actively enables that instead of calling for it to change is choosing to be an asshole. That includes performatively rolling your eyes when people point to a problem that keeps happening and say "this fucking sucks."
homebrew is exactly what nintendo go after
No. Nintendo goes after fan games about Nintendo properties - on any platform. They don't really give a shit about new games for their old platforms, in general.
Did you know that Gabe Newell is a billionaire with multiple yachts? He's an awful capitalist that gamers are ok with because of good PR. He's no different than any other wealth hoarding asshole. Any of these sudden seeming changes to how valve operates is on brand and expected. Money>everything.
Ehhh I absolutely would blame Valve here. They don't have to endorse the project to turn their eyes and allow it to proceed.
Valve's main obligation here, as I see it (IANAL), is their trademark. With copyright, it's up to the rightsholder whether or not they want to prosecute things. With trademarks, they have an obligation to prosecute things they come across or else they might lose that trademark.
There was no pressure on Valve here, except for that trademark thing. Even then, with what they've said, they weren't looking to protect their trademark. They were just looking to avoid the minimal risk that Nintendo actually sued the developers of Portal 64, and Nintendo might include Valve in such a lawsuit. It's not like Portal 64 was being released on Valve's Steam platform, like the Dolphin emulator was.
Valve's lawyers are being excessively conservative and risk averse here. As a result, the community that Valve relies on is suffering harm. That makes these lawyers fucking assholes, in my view. They didn't have to do anything, they weren't prompted to do anything, they did it off their own back to show that they were doing something.
If Nintendo had shut them down, that would be a different thing. However, that would almost certainly only have been a cease and desist letter, sent to the developers, with no involvement with Valve. Valve's lawyers have completely jumped the gun here and done something that actually harms Valve's public image, for no tangible benefit.
Valve should sack these lawyers, they're cunts.
I'm with you on the first part. It makes no sense for Valve to do this. Using LibUltra or not, Nintendo has been relatively lax on people creating new code for the N64. At least to my recollection only in cases where Nintendo felt their IP was directly being threatened did they try and take down fan projects. Even then they heavily rely on the redistribution of Nintendo IP to take things down. Admittedly I have only seen others talking about the Portal 64 project using LibUltra but even so that's Nintendo's fight, not Valve's.
I don't see how Valve could possibly be afraid of getting sued here by Nintendo, it doesn't make sense. Valve did not create it, nor distribute, advertise, or aid in any way. IANAL but I don't see how Valve could possibly be listed as a party to the lawsuit unless Nintendo lawyers agreed with Valve lawyers to go after this guy for IP theft.
TBH I see this more as Valve seeing that with a project this publicly known, if they don't defend their IP here they'll lose any future copyright claims and want to prevent it. They also see an opportunity here, blame Nintendo who won't flinch it at since they get labelled legal bad guys all the time, no real dent to their reputation while saving Valve's internet golden child perception. Valve would never do something like this so it MUST be Nintendo's fault. Based on the comments in this thread and I've seen else where, that seems like a good assumption. Nintendo takes the heat while Valve protects their IP.
also, it's simply cheaper to say to the guy "hey, could you take down?" than even asking lawyers about the legality of the project
TBH I see this more as Valve seeing that with a project this publicly known, if they don't defend their IP here they'll lose any future copyright claims and want to prevent it.
That would only apply to trademarks. Copyright has no requirement to sue to maintain the rights, but registered trademarks do.
I wonder if there was some sort of settlement between Valve and Nintendo, after Dolphin was removed from the Steam store, which requires them to support Nintendo. Even then, this is separate to the Steam store.
It does give them brownie points with Nintendo though, I guess.
When it comes to their trademarks Valve can't take a fully hands-off approach without negative consequences. Either they explicitly endorse the use of the Portal name and other branding, in which case they're encouraging and aiding the project and could potentially be caught up in any lawsuit from Nintendo, or they say nothing and allow the trademark to lapse from non-enforcement, or they prohibit the project from using the Portal branding and enforce that prohibition with a lawsuit if needed. Unfortunately for the project, only one of these options retains their trademark and doesn't set them up for a fight with Nintendo.
Sure, and like I say trademark is the one obligation they have. However, there has been no indication that protecting a trademark was the driving factor. The driving factor seems to be entirely that it involves Nintendo.
Furthermore, there would be no fight with Nintendo here. Nintendo have no real grounds to sue Valve, even if Valve ignored it. Rather, it almost plays out as if Valve hope to host Nintendo software on their platform - which doesn't seem likely to ever happen.
I'm curious about the downvote. What did I say that was objectionable? Valve haven't sent a cease and desist because of an infringement against themselves, they've sent a cease and desist on behalf of Nintendo, apparently without prompt from Nintendo. That's bullshit.
Edit: Lmfao lazy lurkers downvoting without engaging... Put your balls on the table and say something.