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Portal 64 dev says “don’t be mad at Valve” for the project’s shutdown
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this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Ehhh I absolutely would blame Valve here. They don't have to endorse the project to turn their eyes and allow it to proceed.
Valve's main obligation here, as I see it (IANAL), is their trademark. With copyright, it's up to the rightsholder whether or not they want to prosecute things. With trademarks, they have an obligation to prosecute things they come across or else they might lose that trademark.
There was no pressure on Valve here, except for that trademark thing. Even then, with what they've said, they weren't looking to protect their trademark. They were just looking to avoid the minimal risk that Nintendo actually sued the developers of Portal 64, and Nintendo might include Valve in such a lawsuit. It's not like Portal 64 was being released on Valve's Steam platform, like the Dolphin emulator was.
Valve's lawyers are being excessively conservative and risk averse here. As a result, the community that Valve relies on is suffering harm. That makes these lawyers fucking assholes, in my view. They didn't have to do anything, they weren't prompted to do anything, they did it off their own back to show that they were doing something.
If Nintendo had shut them down, that would be a different thing. However, that would almost certainly only have been a cease and desist letter, sent to the developers, with no involvement with Valve. Valve's lawyers have completely jumped the gun here and done something that actually harms Valve's public image, for no tangible benefit.
Valve should sack these lawyers, they're cunts.
When it comes to their trademarks Valve can't take a fully hands-off approach without negative consequences. Either they explicitly endorse the use of the Portal name and other branding, in which case they're encouraging and aiding the project and could potentially be caught up in any lawsuit from Nintendo, or they say nothing and allow the trademark to lapse from non-enforcement, or they prohibit the project from using the Portal branding and enforce that prohibition with a lawsuit if needed. Unfortunately for the project, only one of these options retains their trademark and doesn't set them up for a fight with Nintendo.
Sure, and like I say trademark is the one obligation they have. However, there has been no indication that protecting a trademark was the driving factor. The driving factor seems to be entirely that it involves Nintendo.
Furthermore, there would be no fight with Nintendo here. Nintendo have no real grounds to sue Valve, even if Valve ignored it. Rather, it almost plays out as if Valve hope to host Nintendo software on their platform - which doesn't seem likely to ever happen.