Is Nintendo's takedown of Garry's Mod content just to set a precedent for future?

Nintendo appears to have just discovered the existence of the Steam Workshop, prompting a flurry of takedowns on Garry's Mod user uploads.

The Garry's Mod developers now find themselves in a scramble to intricately moderate two decades' worth of user-generated content to ensure compliance with intellectual property regulations.

In a recent Steam news post, the developers address the situation, acknowledging the removal of certain Nintendo-related workshop items.

“Some of you may have noticed that certain Nintendo related workshop items have recently been taken down,” they state.

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“This is not a mistake, the takedowns came from Nintendo. 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.”

“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,” they shared.

The extent of Nintendo-related add-ons in Garry's Mod is huge. A cursory search for ‘Mario’ on the Steam Workshop yields a whopping 5,624 results across 188 pages, indicating just a fraction of Nintendo's extensive IP library.

Nintendo's reputation for fiercely protecting its intellectual property is well-known

Nintendo's legal team has been notably active from takedowns of emulator images to the demise of fan-made mods like the Zelda: Breath of the Wild multiplayer mod and even legal action against emulation projects like the Switch emulator Yuzu.

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Obviously, one can envision that when a gigantic amount of Nintendo's content from Garry's mod is eliminated, the most popular games and their creations will be completely destroyed.

For starters, one of the most popular maps in the Trouble in Terrorist Town game mode is based on Kakariko Village from The Legend Zelda: Although people might assume it as a no-brainer, the likelihood of the desire happening decreases gradually so that in the end all Nintendo things will be gone.