It's simple: if you are making a fan game project, just don't share it publicly until it's completely finished. I'm tired of seeing so many promising romhacks and fan games get this treatment. You can't trust any game company to support your endeavors, even Valve who has historically been pro-remix culture.
Sad news about Portal 64 being shutdown, but it is an understandable situation (being between Valve and Nintendo is not a good place to be). However, it does bring up an interesting question: can homebrew ROMs for these old platforms be sold on Steam?
I'm developing "Shadowborn" as an open source project, and I did plan on releasing it on Steam in the future. Now I'm not sure. Not because of legal issues, but would Steam even allow it? Inquiring minds want to know. #gamedev#nes#steam#portal64