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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

 

[DragonMals]

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"

I still don't understand this specifically. If this is the case, then why are people able to make Homebrew projects and whatnot and they don't get DMCA'd? or am i not getting something right

 

[ShadowOne333]

I still don't understand this specifically. If this is the case, then why are people able to make Homebrew projects and whatnot and they don't get DMCA'd? or am i not getting something right

The reasoning behind it goes a little bit further down the rabbit hole, but to sum it up, it seems to be due to the author of Portal 64 using leaked SDK from Nintendo, that's what he meant with "proprietary libraries".

 

[DragonMals]

The reasoning behind it goes a little bit further down the rabbit hole, but to sum it up, it seems to be due to the author of Portal 64 using leaked SDK from Nintendo, that's what he meant with "proprietary libraries".

Oh damn... Why don't they recreate the project taking the SDK out of it? Maybe then it wouldn't get DMCA'd like that.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Oh damn... Why don't they recreate the project taking the SDK out of it? Maybe then it wouldn't get DMCA'd like that.

I think because the current open source libraries for N64 might not be as advanced as he might need, that could be the reason, and perhaps full access to the hardware and quirks too.

 

[DragonMals]

I think because the current open source libraries for N64 might not be as advanced as he might need, that could be the reason, and perhaps full access to the hardware and quirks too.

That makes sense. At least people already have access to the game before they can probably lose if officially forever... I wonder if it can be played on an actual n64?

 

[ShadowOne333]

That makes sense. At least people already have access to the game before they can probably lose if officially forever... I wonder if it can be played on an actual n64?

From what I heard, yes it can be played on original hardware, I saw a video some time ago of the game running on actual N64 hardware.

 

[Bladexdsl]

so it's nintendos fault YET again and gabe saved these guys from a lawsuit. your welcome gabe!

 

[LightBeam]

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.

Not talking about TF2 being perfect or not. To each their own, I've always found OW (at least the first game) vastly superior at least in today's gaming landscape. They are just 2 games that belong in different ages.
The issues is that there's no proper support for the game. CSGO suffered the same problem. It's funny when you think about it, that CSGO on consoles died despite being originally a version made for consoles.

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.

Consumer-friendly as it gets ? That's an exageration. Sure they are in some aspects but we forced them to so I wouldn't praise them for it. Valve is a small company and they rely on community support for more than most companies.
Steam Deck is just a PC based on Arch Linux. It's not consumer friendly to sell a PC that can do PC stuff.
They're genuinely doing the bare minimum. If they were even trying we would still have CSGO, wouldn't have made these garbage crates, let black market casinos run rampant because they get their share on these. They are just like any other company, they're always trying to see what they can get away with. The difference between Valve and Nintendo is that Nintendo doesn't care about vocal fans online because they have no reason to, Valve relies on them.




When it comes to Portal64, then I just don't understand why they would get through Valve if it's because of a library they used. If it's theirs, Nintendo should have been able to send the notice by themselves so I just guess that Valve is scared since the thing with Dolphin. I even doubt that Nintendo knew about the project. I just feel like it's Valve doing Nintendo's dirty work which is a bit weird but eh, I guess it was bound to get shutdown too.

 

[Idaho]

I hope the tf2 on source 2 guys can bounce back and port Fortress Forever instead, maybe improve it, as for Portal64 I hope this could be ported to free libraries and if that's not enough for Valve, rebrand the game in another way...

 

[Vanessa__]

Really...? I thought Valve was the one company that didn't do this kind of stuff

 

[Ryab]

So it appears we now have a logical explanation for both. TF2S2 was taken down due to a TOS violation against both Valve and S&Box. S&Box titles are not licensed to use Valve's game assets and this project straight up ripped every asset from the original TF2. This is also technically not allowed by Valve's TOS. Only reason games like Black Mesa were fine was because they used entirely custom made assets. This project technically could have continued if it was given special permission by Valve.

Portal 64 appears to be more of a fear of Nintendo than anything. The developer was known to be using the leaked N64 SDK to develop the project. Valve is likely trying to avoid any kind of relation to it due to it being Nintendo not wanting to try and end things peacefully in most cases. Valve has already had a run in with Nintendo over a similar project in the past.

 

[DragonMals]

So it appears we now have a logical explanation for both. TF2S2 was taken down due to a TOS violation against both Valve and S&Box. S&Box titles are not licensed to use Valve's game assets and this project straight up ripped every asset from the original TF2. This is also technically not allowed by Valve's TOS. Only reason games like Black Mesa were fine was because they used entirely custom made assets. This project technically could have continued if it was given special permission by Valve.

Portal 64 appears to be more of a fear of Nintendo than anything. The developer was known to be using the leaked N64 SDK to develop the project. Valve is likely trying to avoid any kind of relation to it due to it being Nintendo not wanting to try and end things peacefully in most cases. Valve has already had a run in with Nintendo over a similar project in the past.

this is the best explanation of the whole situation. didn't even know that the TF2S2 was even using completely original assets in the first place. So from what I know, Valve isn't to blame for anything and they're still goated I guess.

 

[wolffangalchemist]

Thanks valve, really shows what court your ball is in. Not really cool to go after free projects like this legal or not imo, back in the day they would not have bothered with it but time and money changes everything.
This is why we can't have nice things...
I will be installing cracks for all my owned steam games now on a backup drive just as a future precaution, not exactly to do with this. But we should probably stop relying on companies/corperations to keep our access to things open that we already paid for considering the whole nintendo eshop and more recent playstation thing.

 

[Ryab]

Thanks valve, really shows what court your ball is in. Not really cool to go after free projects like this legal or not imo, back in the day they would not have bothered with it but time and money changes everything.
This is why we can't have nice things...
I will be installing cracks for all my owned steam games now on a backup drive just as a future precaution, not exactly to do with this. But we should probably stop relying on companies/corperations to keep our access to things open that we already paid for considering the whole nintendo eshop and more recent playstation thing.

I like how you didnt read into this at all and just instantly said "fuck you" basically.

 

[Xzi]

The issues is that there's no proper support for the game.

TF2 came out in 2007, the norm would've been to end support several years back. Instead it was last updated three days ago.

Consumer-friendly as it gets ? That's an exageration.

Not an exaggeration. I have trouble even thinking of who in the gaming space comes in second, because it's such a distant second. Maybe Microsoft? Definitely not Sony, Nintendo, or any other PC platform.

Steam Deck is just a PC based on Arch Linux. It's not consumer friendly to sell a PC that can do PC stuff.

That ignores the fact that Linux was DOA for gaming before Proton and SteamOS, and Windows previously had no competition as they started to test out more and more anti-consumer features. A gaming company was not required to solve that problem, but they did anyway. It took almost a decade of work, and they're still refining it.

They're genuinely doing the bare minimum.

EGS, that's what the bare minimum looks like. You'll notice Steam is not similar in the slightest.

The difference between Valve and Nintendo is that Nintendo doesn't care about vocal fans online because they have no reason to, Valve relies on them.

The difference is that Valve cares about generating customer good will, yes, but they aren't required to. They have more money than god at this point, and far more than Nintendo who show nothing but disdain for their paying customers.

 

[wolffangalchemist]

I like how you didnt read into this at all and just instantly said "fuck you" basically.

I read into it, i don't have to agree with it even if they had legal grounds to do so, the tf2 thing they where not selling the assets they used, and the portal port was using the nintendo leaked sdk.. so what? dmca is bad for any type of idependent project, never play hack rom? not legal under dmca... so yeah it stifles creativity, i am sure a hack or mod or port of something was a lot of devs first projects.. as far a dmca i don't have to agree with it or like companies that enforce it in certian senarios. Personally was looking foward to a complete version of portal on the n64, now it will not likely happen.

 

[LightBeam]

TF2 came out in 2007, the norm would've been to end support several years back. Instead it was last updated three days ago.

There's no norm, it's only about playercount. You can talk about updates all you want, it's still a game plagued by bots and cheaters and the game thousands of players because of that, not the other way around.
I just don't see why we should be thankful for any of that. Sure it's understandable that they don't want to spend too many efforts into such an old game, but there's no way I should be thankful for them releasing new lootcrates with community-made hats.

Not an exaggeration. I have trouble even thinking of who in the gaming space comes in second, because it's such a distant second. Maybe Microsoft? Definitely not Sony, Nintendo, or any other PC platform.

Digital Extremes, Warframe is the best consumer-friendly game ever made. Probably on par with Path of Exile but I'm not too familiar with the game, only heard good stuff. They don't even come close to Valve and how they manage microtransactions in their games.

They basically removed what Valve did with TF2 and CSGO

If you were talking exclusively about « platforms » as in stores/devices then GOG, even tho CD Projekt messed the f up with Cyberpunk and I'll never forgive them for that (and they lied a bit about TW3 too but people forgot because the game is good), so far with the store there's absolutely nothing wrong afaik

Also, I said it's an exageration because you say « as it gets » as if it couldn't be better even tho it obviously could be, in massive ways. At this point we're just choosing for the lesser evil and in that regard Valve is fine. Blizzard used to be great on that regard too, but both these companies are held in different standards because of that (were, at least).

That ignores the fact that Linux was DOA for gaming before Proton and SteamOS, and Windows previously had no competition as they started to test out more and more anti-consumer features. A gaming company was not required to solve that problem, but they did anyway. It took almost a decade of work, and they're still refining it.

DOA lol, just that. Sure it was nice to have Valve bundling WINE with other stuff to have an easier way running games on Linux, but the efforts have been constant and no, it wasn't DOA, it would have been slower tho for sure. Steam machines were a thing, it showed that they always had some incentive to have Steam running on a dedicated machine so they had at least some incentive having their solution working on Steam.
And I'm thankful for that, genuinely. Who's going to say no to Linux games but Tim Sweeney ?

EGS, that's what the bare minimum looks like. You'll notice Steam is not similar in the slightest.

That's why I'm talking about Valve, not Steam. You'll notice Epic doesn't have the same business-model in the slightest.

The difference is that Valve cares about generating customer good will, yes, but they aren't required to. They have more money than god at this point, and far more than Nintendo who show nothing but disdain for their paying customers.

They are required to tho, because if they start generating bad will then they start loosing that money and the loyalty they've built will go to Epic or somewhere else. Doesn't matter how much they have or if they have more or less than Nintendo.
The difference is that they start loosing if they do, Nintendo despise their fans yet they don't loose anything. I mean, Gamefreak can spew whatever lies about Pokemon and SwSh gets the best launch ever for the biggest crossmedia franchise. It's a luxury that not even Valve can benefit from.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Valve does not represent Nintendo, they have no legal right or business enforcing Nintendo's IP rights. If they don't care that someone demade Portal, then just leave it be. Nintendo is more than capable of sending out their own DMCA takedowns.
This is really sad, I was really impressed by Portal 64 on a technical level and the guy deserves fame and recognition, and knowing that it's mostly complete makes it all the worse.

 

[Osakasan]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

WHERE'S YOUR GOD NOW, MFERS!?

 

[Xzi]

You can talk about updates all you want, it's still a game plagued by bots and cheaters and the game thousands of players because of that, not the other way around.

So basically like every semi-competitive multiplayer game that doesn't use intrusive kernel-level anti-cheat, then. There's a good reason cooperative multiplayer games gain traction easier at the moment.

Digital Extremes, Warframe is the best consumer-friendly game ever made.

Simply releasing one F2P game and pouring all resources into it is an awfully low bar for "consumer-friendly." Valve gave away indie games all the time before F2P was really even a thing, not to mention marketing the hell out of them at a time when nobody else was. Warframe is on Steam for a reason, after all.

Who's going to say no to Linux games but Tim Sweeney ?

Rewind to 2014, and everybody was saying no to games on Linux. It wasn't even an afterthought.

That's why I'm talking about Valve, not Steam. You'll notice Epic doesn't have the same business-model in the slightest.

You can't hand-wave away the features Steam provides or how much it's been improved over the years if we're talking about Valve's history of consumer-friendliness. Others provide free games with varying degrees of predatory monetization, sure, while Valve provides the most comprehensive gaming ecosystem for free.

Epic's business model is getting kids to use their parents' credit card to buy V-bucks, so yeah, obviously their business model isn't the same.

They are required to tho, because if they start generating bad will then they start loosing that money and the loyalty they've built will go to Epic or somewhere else. Doesn't matter how much they have or if they have more or less than Nintendo.

The amount of money they have in the bank would mitigate any stupid decision they could possibly make. They are not REQUIRED to keep making good decisions, they just have no incentive to suddenly start making bad ones instead.

The difference is that they start loosing if they do, Nintendo despise their fans yet they don't loose anything.

The Wii U era says differently. Nintendo can demonstrate quiet disdain for their customers, most of the younger ones will never notice. That said, they still have to provide hardware that people want to buy, without that they are nothing. Steam will always be relevant because it's available on virtually any hardware, and so Valve didn't just survive during the Wii U era, they grew and thrived.