• ceenote@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Can someone ELI5 how valve could possibly be sued by Nintendo? As far as I know, valve had nothing to do with the project.

    • talizorah@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      Nintendo has never publicly released the tools required to build games for the N64. The tools that he used during development (specifically the libUltra library that helps programmers talk to the N64 hardware) therefore are not legally his to use, nor does he have legal rights to distribute software built using it.

      As such, Valve is stepping up and asking the project to halt because if Nintdo wanted, they could cause legal troubles for the developer and/or Valve. Since the Portal name and assets are in use, Nintendo could go after Valve as well for seemingly “supporting” unauthorized use of their proprietary tools.

      • Secret300@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        It’s definitely something I can see Nintendo doing. I hate that company so much but I hate that I love a lot of their games. Until they get their stuck out of their ass though I’m going to continue to pirate all their games and help hack all my friends consoles so they get them for free as well

      • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Sounds like a reason to distribute it via the high seas instead, if you ask me… no ‘support’ by anyone but still available

    • Shy_high_guy@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      My guess is something along the lines of violating the end user agreement of Nintendos Intellectual property the code that the N64 uses. Same reason you can’t really get old ROMs of Nintendo games.

    • VerseAndVermin@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s built using something Nintendo made. It all makes sense after watching the creators video. He outlines how the lawyers probed with questions to see if they could do it and that was the nope moment. Plus they don’t have incentive to try to fight Nintendo over something that Nintendo may legitimately have reason to fuss over.

    • Ganbat@lemmyonline.com
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      8 months ago

      In short: they can’t. I mean, Nintendo could try, but it would definitely be thrown out. Valve was never directly involved in this project in any way, at least not until stepping in to shut it down. They were just concerned about their IP being in any way connected to anything unauthorized Nintendo.

      • falkerie71@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Even if it would get thrown out, they would still have to allocate resources to fight back, which is time and money they would rather spend on something else. I understand why they just don’t want to have to deal with a potential lawsuit that may or may not come.