I want to share a recent experience that shows how, even in “open” and passionate communities, exercising your copyright can meet with abusive practices. This is the story of a Game Boy developer (myself) who faced threats—some already applied—for making a simple request. I asked for my games to be removed from the website of a game jam organizer (the games were uploaded by the site owner, not by me).
I participated in two Game Boy jams: GBCOMPO 23 and GBCOMPO 25. I finished on the podium in 2023 but did not place in 2025. The rules clearly stated that submissions had to be freely available to both the public and the judges, that they would be published on the competition platform (itch), and that after the competition, developers were free to continue working on their games or…
I want to share a recent experience that shows how, even in “open” and passionate communities, exercising your copyright can meet with abusive practices. This is the story of a Game Boy developer (myself) who faced threats—some already applied—for making a simple request. I asked for my games to be removed from the website of a game jam organizer (the games were uploaded by the site owner, not by me).
I participated in two Game Boy jams: GBCOMPO 23 and GBCOMPO 25. I finished on the podium in 2023 but did not place in 2025. The rules clearly stated that submissions had to be freely available to both the public and the judges, that they would be published on the competition platform (itch), and that after the competition, developers were free to continue working on their games or commercialize them. I fully complied with these rules: my games were public, free, and accessible for judging during the entire competition period.
A few days ago, I requested the removal of all my games from this third-party homebrew site that hosts entries from these jams. The organizers’ response was surprising: they threatened to retroactively disqualify my games (which they did) and demanded reimbursement of the prize money I had won in 2023, claiming my games were no longer “available online.”
The competition rules do not mention any obligation to keep games online indefinitely, any perpetual right for the organizers to host them, or that removing a game from a third-party platform would be a violation. In reality, the games were online for the entire required period and even well beyond.
According to the site’s disclaimer and copyright law, “if you are the developer of something published here, you can, for any reason, request the removal of your work.” I was simply exercising my legal and moral rights over my creations. Nothing in the competition rules required me to keep my games online forever.
Yet the reaction from the organizers of GBCOMPO 23 and 25 was disproportionate: all traces of my participation were erased, and they are demanding that I refund the money I earned by placing on the podium in one of their jams. Worse, this jeopardizes my career as a gamedev, since many of the major Game Boy publishers are also the biggest financial partners of these organizers.
The organizers insist that the rules are clear and non-negotiable. However, what they interpret as a perpetual obligation does not exist in the official text. All these sanctions are based on a rule they retroactively invented.
This experience highlights the importance of knowing and defending your copyright, carefully reading competition rules, and being prepared to challenge arbitrary interpretations. Even in open-source or homebrew communities, creators can face excessive or retroactive demands. The key is not to let oneself be walked over.
I am sharing this story so that other creators understand their rights, so that communities and organizers realize the need to publish clear and fair rules, and to emphasize respect for original creation. Exercising your copyright is not a hostile act—it is a legitimate protection of your work. While this story may not interest the major players in the scene, it can resonate with gamedevs like myself everywhere.
I chose to post this message in the devlog of this game because, with everything happening, I genuinely don’t know what the future holds—for this project or for my journey as a gamedev. Being an indie developer is already incredibly hard, but standing up against giants is even harder. Yet transparency matters, and creators deserve to speak openly about what happens behind the scenes.