[UPDATE]
Rockstar have issued a statement acknowledging the backwards nature of Take-Two’s approach to mods. The following was sent to PCGamer:
“Take-Two’s actions were not specifically targeting single player mods. Unfortunately OpenIV enables recent malicious mods that allow harassment of players and interfere with the GTA Online experience for everybody. We are working to figure out how we can continue to support the creative community without negatively impacting our players.”
Original Article:
So, everyone knows Take-Two and GTA V right? Well, the fourth best-selling game of all time just had it’s modding scene gutted by it’s publisher. The creators of Open IV, arguably the most popular modding tool for GTA V, are shutting down effective immediately. They claim they have received a cease and desist from Take-Two Interactive after nearly 10 years of operation. The news comes as a shock to the PC Grand Theft Auto community, who use OpenIV to add thousands of mods into GTA V.
According to a rather strongly worded, and justified, post on the OpenIV website, Take-Two have just done something really stupid.
On June 5th, 2017, we had received an official Cease-and-Desist letter.
It clearly says, that with OpenIV we “allow third parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation Take-Two’s rights“.
Yes, this letter is illiterate both technically and grammatically (really, they don’t even bothered with proof-reading the text).
What makes this stupid? Well, a huge portion of the modding community relies on Open IV to make their mods work. And people are also convinced that Take-Two plan to make the situation worse rather than better.
And it seems the internet agrees. YouTubers, social media users and GTA V players are all really angry. The social media teams for Take-Two are probably being inundated with angry people shouting for everything from boycotts and massive amounts of negative reviews, to extreme violence. People take their mods pretty seriously apparently. And it’s kind of understandable to see why they do. A large portion of the modding community for Grand Theft Auto games uses Open IV as a backbone for other mods, but that’s not the only issue. The legal precedent that this helps reinforce is one that is blatantly anti-consumer, and it just reeks of greed. A lot of people are speculating that the primary push for this shift has been Take-Two putting pressure to make more money from Rockstar’s game. Nevermind that the majority of GTA V‘s PC players bought it mostly for the modding, and that many players have purchased the game across multiple platforms. Also we should all ignore that GTA V has generated at least SEVERAL HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS in revenue from micro-transactions.
With the announcement that Bethesda is trying it’s hand at monetizing mods soon, there is a possibility that GTA V mods could be monetized in the future as well. However, only time will tell, and it would seem obvious that this move would just inflame an already tense situation.
As of now, Open IV has been removed from distribution and will no longer be updated, now it’s existing installations will show a warning message. Here’s the message users get when trying to use Open IV.
Open IV Shut Down Message
Whatever Take-Two are planning to do, they better do it ASAP if they don’t want more people angry with them.
