Facepunch Studios has announced on Steam that it will be removing 20 years of Nintendo-related Workshop items for its sandbox game Garry’s Mod to meet the demands of the Japanese company. Earlier this year, an X user named Brewster T. Koopa Posted that a group of trolls filed false DMCA claims against the game in an attempt to get Nintendo add-ons removed and add-on manufacturers shut down. The perpetrators allegedly used a fake email to impersonate Nintendo’s lawyers and send DMCA takedown notices. Facepunch Studios said in its new announcement that it believes the claims legitimately came from Nintendo and that it must respect the company’s decision and begin removing items related to its IPs.
“This is an ongoing process as we have 20 years of uploads ahead of us,” the developer wrote. “If you would like to help us by deleting your Nintendo-related uploads and never uploading them again, that would help us greatly.”
[PSA] False flaggers at Garry’s Mod Workshop.
There is someone or a group of trolls running around the Gmod workshop, filing false DMCA claims and shutting down add-ons. Over 10 Gmod add-on makers, including myself, have been attacked and over a dozen of our add-ons have disappeared. pic.twitter.com/ZwVVhQjQlu
— Brewster T. Koopa (@brewsterkoopa) February 11, 2024
Koopa said in a follow-up tweet that they sent an email to the company to let them know that the claims didn’t actually come from Nintendo. They previously argued that the takedown notices could not have come from the Japanese gaming giant because Nintendo add-ons have been around since 2005 and the company had contacted Valve, the publisher of Garry’s Modhimself.
While the announcement is ongoing, Facepunch founder Garry Newman revealed that his team has received emails and direct messages from people and that the developer is conducting an investigation. “We need to take these things seriously (especially from Nintendo), but we also can’t let people abuse DMCA takedowns,” Newman wrote. We’ve reached out to Nintendo to ask if the takedowns Facepunch has received actually came from the company, and we’ll update this post once they respond.
Yes, we have received your emails and DMs, we have seen your messages, we are conducting our own investigation. We need to take these things seriously (especially from Nintendo), but we also can’t let people abuse DMCA takedowns.
– garry (@garrynewman) April 25, 2024