Valve asked Portal 64 developer to take the project down | Hacker News Reader

Valve asked Portal 64 developer to take the project down

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Per the Portal 64 creator in the comments of their Patreon, the library in question was libultra,[1] which is owned and was distributed exclusively by Nintendo but has been extensively pirated.

There are open source alternatives, including libdragon[2] and libn64[3]. Not sure how feasible replacing libultra with either of those would be considering the scale of the project.

1: https://n64brew.dev/wiki/Libultra

2: https://libdragon.dev/, https://github.com/DragonMinded/libdragon

3: https://github.com/mikeryan/n64dev/

I've found LLMs really good at helping with porting from one thing to another.

Since it's fairly mechanical work, they help speed it up - as usual YMMV.

There's more to it than that. The dev built their own gdb integration targeting libultra and retargeting it for libdragon would be a significant effort. Libdragon's 3D implementation is also experimental/unstable. Emulator support for libdragon-built ROMs is spottier since some emulators "cheat" by translating libultra calls instead of emulating the hardware that both libultra and libdragon interact with.

Since Portal 64 is pretty far down development using libultra, I don't know that a LLM can clear the testing and debugging hurdles. A lot of libdragon 3D development happened after the cutoff of 2021-scraped data, which won't help.

Team Fortress 2: Source 2 is down as well.

https://discord.com/channels/902532397877297242/902540593606...

To my knowledge, this is the first time Valve has done anything like this. They are legendary for letting gan projects go wild.

I have a personal fear that this will be an extremely sad page in Valve's history if this is truly indicative of the future they are headed towards, unless there is some bizzare legal IP requirement involved (and yes, I know about the protection tangles required to maintain copyright!)

According to the above tweet it seems like they are taking it down because of Nintendo libraries, not because they want to? Presumably Nintendo reached out and asked valve to take down the project? This doesn't seem like Valve initiated action unless I am misunderstanding something.

It’s not the first time Valve are doing something similar without any action from Nintendo. Nintendo is notorious for its lawsuits and Valve is not taking any chances. Earlier they took down Dolphin emulator from Steam, because they were worried they’d get sued by Nintendo, despite Nintendo hasn’t contacted Valve on that topic in the first place. While it seems wrong, it might have saved Dolphin team from any troubles with Nintendo legal team beforehand, since they were shipping Nintendo’s encryption keys with the emulator.

TF2: Source 2 takedown was particularly surprising to me. I speculated in another thread that it could be related to it being made in s&box which Facepunch are likely to eventually profit from.

If you could make comprehensive clone of a game that depends on a paid engine from another studio, I can see how that could be seen as a threat to Valve IP.

Wait, it wasn't in Source 2? What a weird name

Edit: s&box is a Source 2 follow up for Garry's Mod

Could you share a screenshot of that messave or an invite to that server?

Apologies, I didn't realize it didn't allow for an invite, it's an open server: https://discord.com/invite/tfs2

https://nitter.net/TeamFortressS2/status/1745157812563378649

Looks sketchy, they mistyped S&box and I don't know to what extent s&box has changed but they have a source2 license. If I were Amper Software I'd get in touch with Valve before proceeding with the DMCA request.

The enforcement requirement is for Trademarks, not Copyright.

Given its growing profile, it seems like Valve had two options: either "legitimize" the project by giving them a license, like they did with Black Mesa, or take it down.

I guess that the first option was cut off by the use of the proprietary Nintendo code.

100%, nintendo is a shark for copyright

First I've heard of this project, which is a shame because it sounds(/sounded?) quite cool.

In case anyone else goes looking, I found a mirror that is current as of January 4th, 2024 (commit 61d225e).

https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/origin/directory...

Is there any way to download this with the commit history as well?

The SWH FAQ[1] seems to suggest that you can download a bare git clone with the "revision" download option, but I can't seem to find that option on the portal64 repo.

[1]: https://www.softwareheritage.org/faq/#42_Can_I_clone_a_repos...

I've just requested a git-bare bundle for the latest snapshot via their API. It should contain all branches and releases in a bare Git repository which can be used to reconstruct the repository. It'll take a bit, but you can see the progress here:

https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/vault/git-bare/sw...

Once it's finished, it should be available at:

https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/vault/git-bare/sw...

Take the project down... from Steam. After the Dolphin Emulator situation this seems like a completely expected result. The HN title should be fixed.

This has nothing to do with Steam (as far as I know it was never on Steam, nor planned to be). The project's git repo [0] is down, and he implies he will not be working on it anymore. He has also said [1] that he will be taking down the ROM download (patcher) [2] soon, as well.

[0] https://github.com/lambertjamesd/portal64

[1] https://twitter.com/JoeyCheerio/status/1745150271230038228

[2] https://lambertjamesd.github.io/RomPatcher.js/index.html

I wish there were still a fork of it somewhere. I understand that he wants to honor Valve's request, but it was too cool of a project to just...disappear like that.

It looks like someone already uploaded the code to the internet archive with git history https://archive.org/download/portal64_202401/portal64-repo.z... for stuff like this it is often better to search the manual uploads to internet archive instead of by URL.

It looks like this link is dead too.

Honor request? You mean they sent lawyers and C and Ds after him. There needs to be the software equivalent of the ACLU to defend open source authors.

He still has to honor the request, even if it is for legal reasons. All Im saying is, I wish there were viable forks available so we could still play it

The title leaves the end of the sentence off...

   ...because it depends on Nintento's proprietary libraries.

It turns this from an, "How dare Valve do that!" thing to a, "Well I'm not surprised" thing really fast.

But why? Valve is not involved with Portal 64. They could very well decide to just ignore it and if using those libraries is an issue, why wouldn't Nintendo go after the guy instead of a company which has nothing to do with it?

It's probably bullshit

How is Valve able to take down a project for allegedly using /another/ companies libraries?

Valve owns Portal so doesn't need a "reason" to take down a port of Portal.

The fact that they also took down Team Fortress: Source 2 at the same time, along with Lambert saying that he will continue to do projects on the Nintendo 64, makes me feel, that while it could be legitimate, may also be just be a stated reason to save face.

This, you chose to mess with the bull…

The DMCA's are also for their source game.

It is the long death of what we once knew as valve. In 2010 these kinds of projects would have been supported and motivated by valve devs. It would be sponsored and happily on the steam store even. Theyve allowed so many source game assets to be used in non licensed ways that they have effectively been used as open libraries for game dev. It is the idea behind garrys mod and countless source clones.

Valve has a choice, they don't have to cry copyright infringement. Portal and TF2 are widely profited successfull games. Nobody is stealing profits because they're fundamentally transformative works not designed to compete.

Even in the bad case, the solution is communication, not lawyers. By introducing lawyers into this valve is intentionally escalating the issue. If they actually thought it was worth the DMCA it would be worth a conversation. There are open source N64 libraries that replace the very old n64 libs.

Unfortunately this means that valve is no longer a corp headed by game devs. It's corporate exec, HR and lawyer types. Likely due to the fact that Gabe Newell has been largely uninvolved in the last 10 years. They're following the market trend because innovation is hard and requires strong vision and leadership.

> Unfortunately this means that valve is no longer a corp headed by game devs. It's corporate exec, HR and lawyer types

That's a very interesting statement to say after the release of the steam deck considering how open it is as a platform. They could just be in the process of making a TF2 port to the new source 2 engine

> They could just be in the process of making a TF2 port to the new source 2 engine

Highly doubt that, TF2's development has pretty much been on life support for quite some time, merely including art work and patches made by the community.

It would be really cool if it was the case, but I'll believe it when I see it.

An alleged screenshot of their version control a few years ago suggested this is the case but there's nothing else to confirm it.

Isn’t DotA2, one of their core properties, built on a somewhat generous interpretation of what constitutes fair use?

I don't think it's _that_ generous. icefrog nominally owned the "dota" title (nobody challenged it at least), and the game mechanics & controls are too generic (and also configured by icefrog in a transformative way) to count as copying WC3. They already made the characters different enough (they even tweaked some over the years when they were too close to Blizzard properties, like Leoric and Windrunner).

You could probably have a game have game engine parity with WC3 with original IP and get away with it.

Riot Games sued Valve in 2010 about trademarking the name DotA but it seems like they settled and Valve got exclusive commercial use of "Dota".

True. That's trademarks though. If they lost, they could've just given it a different name but have the game be otherwise the same.

Pretty sure it was Blizzard and not Riot. Dota was a mod for Warcraft 3.

It was Riot Games but it looks like Blizzard sued Valve in 2012 for similar reason (I thought the Blizzard law suit was about some characters being too similar but maybe that was yet another lawsuit).

Classic 'rules for thee, not for me' game dev story. All the big companies rip off smaller developers when it's profitable to do so.

Uh-oh. Will Portal for Apple II be next?

http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/portal/

No, it doesn't use proprietary Nintendo source code.

https://nitter.net/SteamDB/status/1745190618781962662

My pettheory is that some open source projects just reveal, "in company incompetence" and thus are eliminated as a sort of perceived external competition for internal promotion points. It's free work adding to a decaying IPs value.

Can somebody that knows how please send me an actual physical N64 cartridge (my PO Box is in this user profile) that I can simply plug in to my OEM N64 Console and play Portal64.

I will send you a check if you wish to include an invoice — either before or with the cartridge's shipping. It will clear. Name your price. Or swap for Mario Kart and Donkey Kong. I will even pay for the steam sourcecode license (to avoid ©) — I do not use email and don't have gaming computers, and honestly don't wish to sign up for anything... I just want a cartridge that swaps in and out, as desired.

Sounds like you need to buy an Everdrive 64: https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridges/ed64x7.html

> next payment cycle

Correct me if I’m wrong, he was selling a game based off a valve franchise using unlicensed Nintendo libraries?

Well, the game was available for free, but yes the "payment cycle" is referring to his Patreon which was created in November primarily to finance work on the N64 Portal port.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JamesLambert

Former home of source code: https://github.com/lambertjamesd/portal64

That 404 page looks horrible on mobile. Anyone else see it?

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