Why Were Nintendo Assets Removed From Games Like 'Garry's Mod'? Aaron Peters And The DMCA Takedowns On Steam Workshop Explained

Facepunch Studios, the creators behind Garry's Mod, recently released a statement saying that they were asked to remove all Nintendo Assets from Steam Workshop. The news comed as a huge blow to players that have been making mods using Nintendo assets for well over 20 years, despite the developer of Garry's Mod saying that Nintendo's DMCA takedown is "fair enough."

But the story doesn't begin or end here; DMCA takedowns of Nintendo-owned assets have become a reoccurring issue for Gmodders since February 2024, and many in the community had begun to suspect that these copyright strikes were not coming from Nintendo itself.

At the eye of the conspiracy theory lies a man named Aaron Peters, who is being held responsible by some internet communities for falsely representing Nintendo America and getting years of content taken down for reasons unknown. Here's a recap of the events that shook the Gmodding community over the past few months.

Where Did The Nintendo DMCA Takedown Saga Begin?

People first began noticing that their Nintendo assets were being hit with DMCA takedowns on Steam Workshop back in February 2024. Longtime Gmodders Brewster T. Koopa (@brewsterkoopa) and Crispy Toast were the first to raise the alarm.

@Brewsterkoopa posted a tweet expressing his suspicions on February 11th, while Crispy Toast posted a YouTube video addressing how many add-ons were suddenly removed from Steam Workshop on January 23rd, particularly those related to Nintendo franchises like Super Mario and Pokémon.

In his video, Crispy Toast expressed his belief that Nintendo corporate was not behind the takedowns, given that Nintendo assets had been a part of Gmod since the 2000s. Crispy Toast also speculated that a malicious copyright troll disguised as a representative for Nintendo of America was responsible for the false DMCAs.

Who Is Aaron Peters, And Does He Work For Nintendo?

After Crispy Toast's video, Brewster T. Koopa posted another tweet about the Nintendo DMCA strikes, this time showing a document containing the name "Aaron Peters." Apparently, a man named Aaron Peters had gathered quite the reputation over the past few months for sending DMCA notices to many people using Nintendo assets for GMod, or their own personal or commercial artwork.

The name "Aaron Peters" was echoed by Fraymakers, a content creator who often used Nintendo assets in their work before receiving a DMCA takedown request in January 2024.

Around this time, an older thread hosted on the site Pillowfort also came to light. Back in June 2020, Pillowfort user @MkLXIV had shared their experience with receiving DMCA takedowns from Nintendo, specifically, from a person named Aaron Peters at Nintendo America.

In March 2024, Crispy Toast uploaded a video called "Garry's Mod – False Nintendo DMCA Claims: The Story," detailing the entire story about the false DMCA claims and the tweets from Brewster T. Koopa. Him and various other creators then began a campaign to get the attention of bigger YouTubers on this issue.

If Aaron Peters Is A Troll, Why Are Nintendo Assets Being Taken Off Garry's Mod?

In late April 2024, Facepunch, the studio behind GMod posted a statement to the Steam Workshop announcing their plan to remove every single Nintendo add-on from the platform. To put things into perspective, a game like Pokémon alone has nearly 2,700 pieces of content, while Animal Crossing has a whopping 18,231.

The next day, Garry Newman (the creator of GMod) made a statement on Twitter saying that he was "assured that the takedowns have been verified by Nintendo as legit," and that he was not planning to reverse the scheduled purge of Nintendo assets from Steam Workshop.

For the full history of Steam Workshop's Nintendo add-ons takedown, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.