Facepunch Studios has just confirmed that a takedown request from Nintendo has put an end to 20 years of Garry's Mod content in the Steam Workshop.
In a post published on Steam, Facepunch confirmed that Nintendo had directly issued a takedown request against Garry's Mod, ordering the developer to remove anything related to the Nintendo brand or its games.
Nintendo Takes Action: Garry's Mod Faces Removal Of Nintendo Content
In the post, Facepunch Studios asked players and creators to help them remove any trace of anything Nintendo-related from Garry's Mod:
Honestly, this is fair enough. This is Nintendo’s content and what they allow and don’t allow is up to them. They don’t want you playing with that stuff in Garry’s Mod – that’s their decision, we have to respect that and take down as much as we can. This is an ongoing process, as we have 20 years of uploads to go through. If you want to help us by deleting your Nintendo related uploads and never uploading them again, that would help us a lot.
It was initially thought that the DMCA requests coming from "Nintendo" were fake and being circulated by a troll, but Facepunch Studios has confirmed that the requests are legitimate and come directly from Nintendo's legal team. Many users are now wondering what took Nintendo so long (20 years!) to make this formal request. Perhaps they do not have enough to do, even though the legal battles against Yuzu/Suyu have entered their third round.
There are millions of files in the Steam Workshop dedicated to Garry's Mod, one of the most customizable sandbox games ever made. Everything from tools to maps, from character models to vehicles can be pulled into the game from the shop, and there must be quite a bit of Nintendo-related stuff packed into those millions of files.