Things have not been too smooth in the Grand Theft Auto V modding community as of late, and that’s mostly on Take-Two Games.
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Last week, the publisher sent a cease-and-desist letting to the developer of OpenIV, a modding tool made for the community for use with such games as Grand Theft Auto V, as well as Grand Theft Auto IV and Max Payne 3. The letter indicated that “OpenIV enables recent malicious mods that allow harassment of players and interferes with the GTA Online experience for everybody.”
Since then, things have gotten very ugly, with community members giving Grand Theft Auto V huge negative ratings on Steam, and more disputes rising up against Take-Two. Originally, Rockstar Games sided with the publisher, but now, it’s working more with the community to assure a bit more balance.
The team behind Grand Theft Auto V and the forthcoming Red Dead Redemption II has been speaking with the Open IV developer, Yuriy “Good-NDS” Krivoruchko, to resolve certain disputes, and have also released a statement, indicating that there will be no legal action taken by Take-Two on would-be modders, and that it fully supports “reasonable fan creativity.” The statement in full is below:
“Rockstar Games believes in reasonable fan creativity, and, in particular, wants creators to showcase their passion for our games. After discussions with Take-Two, Take-Two has agreed that it generally will not take legal action against third-party projects involving Rockstar’s PC games that are single-player, non-commercial, and respect the intellectual property (IP) rights of third parties. This does not apply to (i) multiplayer or online services; (ii) tools, files, libraries, or functions that could be used to impact multiplayer or online services, or (iii) use or importation of other IP (including other Rockstar IP) in the project. This is not a license, and it does not constitute endorsement, approval, or authorization of any third-party project. Take-Two reserves the right to object to any third-party project, or to revise, revoke and/or withdraw this statement at any time in their own discretion. This statement does not constitute a waiver of any rights that Take-Two may have with respect to third-party projects.”
However, it’s worth noting that the statement doesn’t include anything regarding online mods that put other IP and risk certain boundaries. But it sounds like Rockstar Games is trying to make things a little more fair for the modding community.
Whether this will lead to any sort of long-term resolutions has yet to be seen, but fingers crossed that everyone can work this out, and can go back to being a happy Grand Theft Auto community.
