Valve is a company that is still respected by the average gamer. They don’t make half-baked games and always have been in support of consumer rights. However, it seems like they always don’t take the user’s side in every situation. This is because Valve has just issued DMCA strikes against some fan projects that were in development.
Also, read – The Unofficial Spider-Man 2 PC Port Is Looking Promising
Valve Fan Projects – TF Source 2 And Portal 64
Bringing the game Team Fortress: Source 2 back to life with a more contemporary engine through the S&box project was one of those endeavors. According to the developers on Twitter, Valve’s DMCA removal of it is essentially the “nail in the coffin” for the project.
“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 [sic],” the DMCA notification from Valve states. “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.”
The other Valve Fan Project was an unofficial Port of Portal to the Nintendo N64. While this one isn’t a DMCA strike, the creator explains that Valve wasn’t gonna let it happen. The issue was regarding the “proprietary libraries”. While it is not known what it means, it may mean the game used a toolkit used by N64 developers. The problem is the kit isn’t allowed to be used by the general public and probably requires a license from Nintendo itself. Valve doesn’t have a problem with the port but they do have a problem that Nintendo may interfere.
While this move is really out of character for Valve, maybe it was expected. Maybe this only happened because of some really intricate issues with licensing.
