Nintendo could benefit greatly by just allowing these kind of projects, but that would be out of character and we can't be having that.

I wasn't Nintendo, it was Valve taking preemptive action because of how Nintendo has acted in the past...

It's unfortunate, but it's pretty reasonable given how Nintendo is.

Wasn’t it taken down at Valve’s request, not Nintendo’s demand?

Apparently even Valve's lawyers don't like dealing with Nintendo's lawyers.

I don't think thats how it works for copyright. You have to defend your trademarks to keep them but for copyright, you can decide who can use it rather arbitralily.

Especially allowing a release of an old game on platform you don't support which would not really compete with you.

I don't think Nintendo would have a case against Valve, only against the developers of the demake. It looks more like Valve wants to maintain a good relationship with Nintendo, given Valve has ported Portal to the Switch and may intend to port more of their back catalog.

They also likely have a touchy relationship right now considering the removal of dolphin.

You know, you chose a bad post to get edgy.

Valve is actually one of the companies that treats fan projects very well, sometimes they'll even let you sell your project on Steam (see Black Mesa remake).

That's a lot harder...

Not just to design and come up with, but to get people to even try it.

The smart move is to make something like this, release your own game, then release the fan project which brings visibility to your original game.

Pure speculation:

Nitendo is one of the most notorious copyright litigators in the industry, it would not surprise me if they objected to the use of their libraries and pressured valve to exercise their ownership of the IP to shut it down

I know nothing about this, so honestly don't listen to me. But Nitendo is a huge joykill so I'm happy just assuming it's at least partly their fault

So because it depends on Nintendo libraries, valve wanted it taken down, but valve doesn’t represent nintendo and the project isn’t by them or on steam, so who’s actually at risk of being sued and why?

Valve is happy to allow fan creations when they are on Steam. Valve doesn't want such things outside of Steam and used a sock puppet to save face.

Valve removed it because it used official N64 APIs that Nintendo holds as classified information. I think if it had totally been bottom-up crafted from scratch, it would have survived. But Valve does NOT wanna deal with a Nintendo lawyer.

Why do grown adults keep using IP copyrighted by big companies? Unofficial ports, unofficial remakes, unofficial sequels, etc. get taken down all the time and yet constantly the creators think "no, my project is special. It'll be spared that fate" and almost every time they're wrong.

A Portal-like game without using Portal assets and Valve had no leg to stand on...

If the name is the problem and Valve wants to be cool they could just say that.

Black Mesa also had to change its name one time iirc. It was originally being developed as Black Mesa: Source, and Valve told them to drop the "Source" part.

Watching Black Mesa development was really neat, because it kept getting delayed, then they stopped updating fans while insisting it was still in development, and we'd all pretty much decided it was never getting finished.

Then it came finally came out and was so good Valve let them license and sell it.

It sounds from the article like the ultimate issue is use of Nintendo IP, not Valve's.

Though I've never understood why Nintendo is so authoritarian about its IP.