Nintendo forces Garry's Mod to delete 20 years of content — Garry confirms Nintendo is behind Steam Workshop purge

News
By Dallin Grimm
published

That's a lot of add-on content.

Screenshot from Garry's Mod
(Image credit: Facepunch Studio)

PC gaming classic Garry's Mod is nearly 20 years worth of content, as Nintendo has issued a takedown notice for all Nintendo-based user content in the Steam Workshop for the game. Garry, the eponymous creator of the game, confirmed on Twitter/X today that there is no mistake, Nintendo themselves issued the major takedown notice.

Garry's Mod players spent the first hours after the announcement questioning whether Nintendo truly issued the takedown, pinning the potential blame on trolls. However, Garry took to the internet to confirm Nintendo's involvement. He tweeted, "I have been assured that the takedowns have been verified by Nintendo as legit, so this will now continue as planned. Sorry. 🫸🍄🗑️" The Garry's Mod Steam page notes that the process of complying with the takedown will take much time, adding "If you want to help us by deleting your Nintendo related uploads and never uploading them again, that would help us a lot." 

Nintendo has a reputation for bringing litigation to companies that it belives harm its brand. The company received news coverage most recently for a lawsuit against the Yuzu Switch emulator, arguing in their suit that all emulation in any form is illegal. This move angered game preservation and emulation enthusiasts. Today's Garry's Mod takedown is harder to argue with, as ripping or copying copyrighted assets is fair game for a DMCA request. 

Garry's Mod will likely spark good memories longtime PC gamers. The Steam darling has been a fixture of the PC gaming landscape since 2006, inspiring many eras of internet culture like the multiplayer game modes Prop Hunt and Mafia-like Trouble in Terrorist Town which have seen extensive imitations in AAA games, and years of YouTube animations culminating in 2023 megahit Skibidi Toilet. The sandbox game is known for the massive workshop of user-made creations, which Nintendo took issue with when it discovered years' worth of ripped Nintendo assets in-game.

If you're feeling nostalgic and looking to boot Garry's Mod back up on your PC, it will thankfully run on almost any computer produced in the last 10 years. But if you're looking for an excuse to upgrade anyways, consider our most recent build guide on PCs at any budget.

Dallin Grimm
Freelance News Writer
42 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Order 66
    Why does Nintendo have to be so anti consumer?! Why can’t they just let people use their work non commercially? I would understand if people were making money off it, but this isn’t the first time that nintendo has done something anti consumer.
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    Nintendo is absolutely out of control. This is the sort of action that does brand and reputation damage. Most of these mods obviously fall under fair use. A lot of the mods create ways for people to engage with Nintendo properties in a way that amplifies the value of their IP too. There is no negative commercial impact here.

    I'm going to be looking for ways to stick it to Nintendo in retaliation for these takedowns. Hopefully many people feel the same way.
    Reply
  • FR33L35T3R
    i have a thought to people who spent time to makes all that content.
    Then Nintendo throw away all that work for no reason.
    Reply
  • YouFilthyHippo
    Order 66 said:
    Why does Nintendo have to be so anti consumer?! Why can’t they just let people use their work non commercially? I would understand if people were making money off it, but this isn’t the first time that nintendo has done something anti consumer.

    Nintendo has always been an extremely scummy company, in more ways than one. But I think as it relates to IP, I think they are extremely protective of it, because if they don't, more and more people will try and start using it, and they think it will get out of hand. If they sue some 10 year old kid who uses a self-hand-drawn blown up Mario background as his backdrop for a school speech about the video game industry, and the school awarded him a 100$ gift card to a toy store because of how well done his speech was, Nintendo will claim that the child made money off their IP.

    They will sue, and Nintendo will win, or the students parents will settle for $50K in damages that don't actually exist because it would cost less than going to court. There are no actual damages. Nintendo just does this to "send a message" to the world. Problem is: Copyright laws enable this. The copyright laws as they are need a serious overhall and rework, as right now they severely stifle innovation and creativity amongst gamers. This is just one example.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    sadly for Nintendo once soemthigns on the net it doesnt go away.

    Already a subreddit getting people together to preserve the content being removed.
    Reply
  • oofdragon
    Nintendo became the scum of gaming world not only by keeping themselves their IP from growing and shining selling really lackluster potat.. I mean hardware, but also by trashing their fans and customers. Anytime now they are going after Kaizo Mario lol, and that's actually a really good example of level design done right. They could have learnt something with mods instead of trying to take em down
    Reply
  • BigBoi69420
    hotaru251 said:
    sadly for Nintendo once soemthigns on the net it doesnt go away.

    Already a subreddit getting people together to preserve the content being removed.
    "Sadly for nintendo" lmao

    Yeah, and luckily for us we can always find just about anything they try to nuke off of the internet. They tried to kill Switch emulation too but it ain't going anywhere. Can't wait to emulate the heck out of TTYD next month
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    You guys do realize that the bulk of Garry's Mod content tends to be pretty trash, right? I'm guessing much of the Nintendo related content on it was using Nintendo's characters and properties in ways that was making them look bad. This isn't just user-generated content either. A lot of this is content directly ripped from Nintendo's games and ported into this game.

    And keep in mind that Garry's Mod is not just some free mod, as its name might imply. It's a title being sold on Steam that's made tens of millions of dollars, so its developer definitely has a responsibility to make sure content uploaded by its users is not infringing on the property of others.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    cryoburner said:
    so its developer definitely has a responsibility to make sure content uploaded by its users is not infringing on the property of others.
    normally yes but the games been out for 18 yrs....
    Reply
  • bit_user
    The article said:
    Nintendo took issue with when it discovered years' worth of ripped Nintendo assets in-game.
    Funny thing is, I dreamed of being able to do this as a young child, back in the days of NES. I know I'm not the only one, and I had no idea how it would work, but it seemed to me that it must somehow be possible to bring characters from one game into another.

    Well, I'm glad people had fun with it, while it lasted. And I do hope their crackdowns somehow backfire on Nintendo.
    Reply