That Portal 64 demake we liked so much has been kiboshed by Valve: 'They have asked me to take the project down,' creator says
That Portal 64 demake we liked so much has been kiboshed by Valve: 'They have asked me to take the project down,' creator says
It looks like Valve doesn't want to get involved in a potential dispute between the creator of Portal 64 and Nintendo.
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/758234
This is such a shame, it is such exceptional work... Hopefully switching engines will allow the project to continue.
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Another reminder of the age-old lesson: If you're working on a fan project that involves another company/person's IP, keep it a secret until you're ready to release it. So many cool fan projects get shut down because they get impatient and show off their work so early that they get C&D'd before they ever get a chance to come close to finishing their project.
Don't forget the other age-old lesson:
Be prepared to pivot. There's nothing stopping you from making a homage/inspired by with your own intellectual property.
So instead of being told to stop with a warning, release it and risk being actually sued for damages. Nice.
Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. It's hard to tell, since so few developers ever actually release their fan projects in the first place, so there's not a lot of noteworthy cases to draw precedent from.
But at the very least, you'll end up with a finished product under your belt. You'll have experienced the entire process of designing, developing, and releasing a video game. That's legitimate experience that you can put on your resume, even if you are sued for it. But an incomplete project that got shutdown before ever seeing the light of day is worthless to a developer who may want to pursue a future in software.
In that context, you can still show your work and would have still gained the experience. Nothing about that requires using someone else's IP, but it also isn't going to harm the IP holder like actually releasing such a project to the public would. Using copyrighted materials specifically for personal use or for school projects, both of which are never meant to be released to the public, are generally fair use. These projects were never intended to remain private.