A bunch of Steam Workshop mods have been taken down from the Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics Hub, without any explanation. Some were clear violations of the rules – uploading entire games like NBA Jam, for example – but others seemed to be taken down for no reason whatsoever, like one mod that added Knuckles into the first Sonic game.
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Sega have since responded, saying legitimate mods were taken down automatically and weren’t targeted by Sega or Valve. The two are now working together to reinstate the mods for anyone caught up in the whole mess.
“Sega would like to reiterate how delighted it is with how the Mega Drive/Genesis Collection community has self-moderated content on Steam Workshop,” Sega told PCGamer. “We’ve seen some fantastic mods created and released on the platform and want to encourage the community’s continued creativity by helping to curate a library of outstanding mods.
“However, due to some erratic user behaviour over the last few days, many mods which didn’t breach Steam’s terms of service were automatically removed from Steam Workshop. Sega and Valve are working together with the affected modders to reinstate their work as soon as possible and have already reversed a number of removals.”
Sega go on to say that they and Valve aren’t actively removing mods that don’t violate the terms of service, only those in clear breach. If you’re a modder and you feel your creation has been wrongly caught up in all this, you just need to email [email protected] – the team will then investigate from there.