14 DAY TRIAL // It’s only been several days since Dark Souls made the jump from Games for Live Windows to Steam and everyone praised Bandai Namco and From Software for caring.
Well, now it looks like Bandai Namco did something that deeply hurt most if not all Dark Souls fans. The publisher took legal action against one of the most important mods for From Software’s masterpiece, DSFix.
The author of the mod, Durante, confirmed he received an official email from Dropbox, the place where the DSFix mod was hosted, ordering him to disable the links to the toolset if he wanted his account to be reinstated.
Dropbox states that it has received a DMCA complaint from Bandai Namco claiming that the DSFix mod infringes on Dark Souls intellectual property and thus it should not be available for download.
According to the creator of DSFix, his mod does not contain any material owned by Bandai Namco or From Software, but in order to reinstate the download links, he must file a counter complaint.
It seems strange that a simple toolset that makes a game playable and also comes for free is now being removed from whatever reason. DSFix is the reason many PC gamers decided to purchase Dark Souls, as the game does not support higher resolutions without this mod.
Lots of Darks Souls fans took to Twitter to express their feelings towards Bandai Namco’s recent DMCA complaint over the DSFix mod, and their thoughts aren’t positive at all, on the opposite.
“Completely ridiculous decision to file a DMCA to take down DSFix, the patch that made Dark Souls PC the success that it was” says ANormalCrow, while Xisiqomelir is harsher, saying “Hey morons, why are you DMCAing free fixes for your incompetent programming?”
Is it possible that Bandai Namco plans to release a fix of its own or an enhanced version of Dark Souls?
Bandai Namco’s decision to file a DMCA complaint for the removal of DSFix is very strange and total unwelcomed, unless developer From Software has plans to offer something else in return.
That “something” might in fact require Dark Souls owners to pay a little extra in order to play their game in higher resolution. Otherwise, like ZeagarNodal puts it, this is a good “way to shoot yourself in the foot and stab the community in the back.”
There are literally hundreds of disappointed Dark Souls players who wonder why Bandai Namco made such a move without even taking the time to explain it to the public.
“Wow someone comes up with DSFix to fix your broken game and you file a DMCA complaint against them? Some thank you,” says Brian Brotherton.
For the time being, Bandai Namco keeps mum on the matter, and while DSFix download links from Dropbox have been disabled, the mod can still be downloaded through other digital distribution channels.
