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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

 

[LightBeam]

People have been treating Valve like they were perfect. Sure not as bad as Nintendo but there were some decisions ..... Another 2 on the list, what a shame really

Post automatically merged: Jan 12, 2024

they can't have people thinking they were involved in what might turn out to be a buggy mess.

Yeah they probably want exclusive credit for that

 

[Xzi]

People have been treating Valve like they were perfect.

There is no other AAA developer/publisher half as lax about this stuff as Valve, but the line always has to be drawn somewhere. Keeping themselves off NIntendo's radar and requiring fan projects to use some original assets are perfectly reasonable guidelines.

Countless Half-Life and Portal fan games are available on Steam, so clearly it's something that's allowed as long as common sense plays a role too.

Yeah they probably want exclusive credit for that

Perhaps you're mixing them up with Bethesda.

 

[eduall]

say farewell to this project!

 

[Obveron]

It’s mainly that Valve doesn’t allow their assets to be transferred to other engines

They never stopped the Black Mesa team from moving Half Life from Gldsrc to Source 1. In fact they embraced it, and even let them sell the game. I'm not surprised Valve has revealed themselves to be another litigious bully, but I'm disappointed.

 

[Xzi]

They never stopped the Black Mesa team from moving Half Life from Gldsrc to Source 1. In fact they embraced it, and even let them sell the game. I'm not surprised Valve has revealed themselves to be another litigious bully, but I'm disappointed.

There are a bunch of original assets in Black Mesa too. It's legally distinct from any official Half-Life game, that's the difference. TF2 Source 2 devs made no effort to distinguish the game from TF2, so it can't even be considered a fan game, just an unauthorized port. There are exactly ZERO AAA devs in existence who would allow for that.

 

[DoctorBagPhD]

Well now all the whining kids will come in again without reading why they took them down...

People can disagree with the action while acknowledging Valve had the right to do it, you know...

 

[StrayGuitarist]

Gotta love neglecting TF2 for years, letting the community create content for the most recent updates, then getting mad and taking things down when fans make more TF2 content. TEAM FORTRESS 2 ORIGINATED DUE TO A FAN MADE MOD FOR HALF LIFE, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS DOING

 

[LightBeam]

There is no other AAA developer/publisher half as lax about this stuff as Valve, but the line always has to be drawn somewhere. Keeping themselves off NIntendo's radar and requiring fan projects to use some original assets are perfectly reasonable guidelines.

I'm not just talking about that.
Paid mods, loot boxes, straight up porn games just because Gabe wanted those even tho everyone else at Valve opposed to it (but I guess it's not an issue for some) are what comes to mind, there are others but they are older and also just « mistakes » so it's not really relevant.
We also didn't had refunds out of goodwill from Gabe. Europe had to force them.
You say TF2 is updated regularely, cool they're bug fixing stuff and adding crates with hats that the community made. When Overwatch released they woke up and updated their game to give it a trash matchmaking that made custom servers buggy/unavailable for a while, that nobody asked for and added a ranked system as if that was necessary lol. Years of lobbies literally filled entirely by bots, if not cheaters, and even today it's still an issue. But hooray they're adding christmas crates to end the year ! People just don't want to admit it's dead and delude themselves into thinking it's somehow doing better than Valorant and Overwatch
I could say a lot about CSGO too, I love this game but not enough to be deluded into thinking it's perfect.

Perhaps you're mixing them up with Bethesda.

I don't remember Todd Howard being involved in Counter Strike 2 (could say a lot about it too)


Now honestly about TF2 on S2, it was a port of TF2 on S&box and it was on hold anyway, honestly I don't care that much and you are right, it's understandable, it's a decision that makes sense and even Gary says it, s&box doesn't have licence to use Valve assets so of course they just wouldn't let people host one of their game on another engine (and apparently it was going to break after the next update anyway, it never could have been a real product). Still wondering about what Valve think about TF2 Classic tho.

What about Portal64 then ? I can see them getting a bit « Nintendo-y », it just seems silly.
It's just a reminder that Valve ain't friends.

 

[Xzi]

You say TF2 is updated regularely, cool they're bug fixing stuff and adding crates with hats that the community made. When Overwatch released they woke up and updated their game to give it a trash matchmaking that made custom servers buggy/unavailable for a while, that nobody asked for and added a ranked system as if that was necessary lol. Years of lobbies literally filled entirely by bots, if not cheaters, and even today it's still an issue. But hooray they're adding christmas crates to end the year ! People just don't want to admit it's dead and delude themselves into thinking it's somehow doing better than Valorant and Overwatch

Nobody said TF2 is perfect. I would say it's much superior to Valorant and Overwatch 2, but higher quality doesn't always equate to higher player count. A lot of people just play what's newer.

What about Portal64 then ? I can see them getting a bit « Nintendo-y », it just seems silly.

It was an issue of using official Nintendo code libraries for the N64. Ninty sends a letter to Valve, Valve sends a letter to the devs. Getting it to run on N64 hardware without those libraries would be a lot more difficult, but they would've been safer just making it a ROM for play with emulators instead.

It's just a reminder that Valve ain't friends.

Friends, no. Consumer-friendly as it gets, yes. That's why they're the only major gaming company selling open platform hardware which allows you to pirate, emulate, and install any software you want.

 

[CeeDee]

Nintendo is so anti-consumer and evil for taking down fan projects, this is why it's morally correct to pi--

Wait. What do you mean Valve took them down?

Um, never mind! There's no way Valve wouldn't do anything wrong! They made Steam! Surely there's a good reason they took this down! Praise Gaben!

 

[Jayro]

Valve won't even give us a DX 12 update for TF2, so wtf are they doing?

 

[jnl1]

Played the Portal 64 mod on my ED64plus flashcart. Just impressive!!!

 

[IRUZZ]

Valve and DMCA are two words I never thought I'd hear together yet here we are

 

[Sir Tortoise]

Lord Gaben would never do this! Nintendo must have sent the ninjas to infiltrate Valve and make them do unwholesome things.

 

[Cloud853]

Blame Nintendo not Valve

 

[linuxares]

Valve and DMCA are two words I never thought I'd hear together yet here we are

I think they've done it before

 

[Bladexdsl]

Blame Nintendo not Valve

rule number one

 

[Deleted member 194275]

man... Valve fanboys are annoying...

Face it my friends, no corporation is your friend or care about the community, the consumer, it's all about making money and protecting property (including imaginary ones, like IPs), if the consumer, the community, the fans are between them and those objectives, they will run over, no remorse.

Valve even skip taxes, In the past I brought stuff there and the my credit card sent the money not to the USA (to pay taxes there like it should), but to Luxembourg. So next time the US government shuts down a cool NASA program, or kid dies for lack of public medical assistance on the USA, or the the government send less bullets to bring democracy somewhere, or any other of those super cool USA agendas fail for lack of funding, remember that Valve (and not only Valve) is part of the problem.

 

[Halbour]

So I guess Valve is the next Nintendo to take down Portal mods?

No it is Nintendo, As the second DMCA said

 

[HarveyHouston]

Team Fortress 2 made on Source 2 engine? Would have liked to see that, so not fully understanding why Valve would kill it. My only guess is because they think the original is good enough, and porting to Source 2 might cause issues somewhere down the line with the already-in-place anti-cheat system (i.e. trying to cross-play with TF2 on Source 1). This is what I believe, despite the reasoning they gave about their IPs not being properly licensed.

Portal 64, however... it's a wonder that project has lasted this long. Note to future developers - build your own libraries; don't use a portion of Nintendo's code. That's why the Link's Awakening HD homebrew was taken down - instead of being a proper ROM hack, it supplied the assets already.

TBH, pussy-footing around these companies, however, is a real pain. Ideally, they'd just let these continue to persist unrestricted, but... whatever.