Owns Facepunch Studios Announce On Steam it is removing 20 years worth of Nintendo related workshop items for its sandbox game Maud Gary To comply with the demands of the Japanese company. Earlier this year, an X user named Brewster T. Koopa appeared to publish That a group of trolls were filing false DMCA claims against the game to remove Nintendo add-ons and to force add-on makers to shut down. The perpetrators allegedly used a fake email to impersonate Nintendo's attorneys to send DMCA takedown notices. In its new announcement, Facepunch Studios said it believes the demands came legitimately from Nintendo, and it should 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 to complete,” the developer wrote. “If you would like to help us by deleting Nintendo-related uploads and never upload them again, that would help us a lot.”
[PSA] The false informants in Garry's Mod Workshop.
There's someone, or a group of trolls, roaming the Gmod Workshop making false DMCA claims and shutting down add-ons, and more than 10 Gmod add-on makers, including myself, have been attacked, with more than a dozen disappearing From our extras. 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 letting it know the demands were not actually from Nintendo. They previously argued that the takedown notices couldn't have been from the Japanese gaming giant, because Nintendo's add-ons had been around since 2005 and because the company would have reached out to Valve, the game's publisher. Maud GaryItself.
While the announcement is still live, Facepunch founder Garry Newman announced that his team has received people's emails and direct messages and that the developer is conducting an investigation. “We need to take these things seriously (especially from Nintendo), but we also can't allow people to abuse DMCA takedowns,” Newman wrote. We've reached out to Nintendo to ask if the takedowns Facepunch received actually came from the company, and we'll update this post once we respond.
Yes, we've gotten your emails and direct messages, we've seen your ads, and we're conducting our own investigations. We need to take these things seriously (especially from Nintendo), but we also can't allow people to abuse DMCA takedowns.
– Gary (@garrynewman) April 25, 2024
Updated, April 25, 2024, 11:04 a.m. ET: Newman has since moved to X to state It has been “confirmed that the removals have been verified by Nintendo as legitimate” and that the removals “will now continue as planned”.