Nintendo has 20 years deleted from a famous game

Nintendo is not one to let the uses of its intellectual property go unchallenged. However, some productions slip through the cracks. Garry’s Mod was one of them, until Nintendo landed on Steam with a removal request. The developers of the famous sandbox game must immediately remove all mention and representation of Nintendo characters. Suffice to say, there is work to be done.

Released in 2006, Garry’s Mod has nearly a million extremely positive reviews. Many players have participated in the title’s ecosystem, which has also had its moments of glory when content creators took hold of it. The studio, which describes its game as “a graphical toolbox” is the terrain of many experiments and creations. It is therefore not abnormal to find references to another video game giant such as Nintendo.

Mario, Link and others are now an integral part of the gameplay of the title. This is why Nintendo wants to crack down on unauthorized use of its intellectual property. A request that the developer admits is legitimate, but nevertheless complicated to implement. He states in a post on Steam:

“Honestly, this is completely normal. This is Nintendo content and what they allow or don’t allow is up to them. They don’t want you to play with this stuff in Garry’s Mod – that’s their decision, we have to respect that and remove everything we can. This is a gradual process, as we have 20 years of uploads to go through. If you want to help us out by deleting your Nintendo-related uploads and never uploading them again, that would help us a lot.”

Why now?

Since its release, the game has accumulated saves related to Nintendo licenses. The over-the-top Marios will be greatly missed by players, but they also have to go. The only thing that is rather strange about this is Nintendo's lack of responsiveness. Indeed, the firm is known for its strict rules. It takes them no less than a week to get rid of a problematic YouTube channel, but almost 20 years for a game as famous in the industry as Garry's Mod?

No other details on the context of the request have been disclosed, so we will have to make do with these explanations. Even with all this content removed, Garry’s Mod remains one of the most complete sandboxes on the market. Specializing in character physics, it is possible to design anything in this title where freedom reigns supreme.