Take-Two Shuts Down Popular GTA 5 Modding Tool

What? Non-E3 news? I'm afraid so: while I would love to continue to marinade in the latest game trailers and dumps from around the industry, there are some bits of news that cannot be ignored, and after Take-Two CEO was caught on-camera admitting they need to do more to take their customer's money, this definitively got my attention.

It looks like Take-Two's fall has begun.

So, here's the story: GTA V, as you probably know, is a very popular game to mod, given that it's a big sandbox world full of options and opportunities, a literal "Skyrim with guns" situation. People have modded in new powers, new weapons, poke around the code, custom skins, what have you, and it's been great fun for everyone. The most popular tool to let people do that has been OpenIV, which has been around for over ten years, but now, if you try to go to their site to download it yourself, you'll be stopped by notification telling you that the OpenIV team has been struck with a Cease and Desist letter from Take-Two interactive, and thus they must stop working on or selling their mod-making tool.

Saying that "mods are illegal for Take-Two games" and that they allow "third parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation Take-Two’s rights". Creator GooD-NTS (via Kotaku) had this to say on the subject:

“Yes, we can go to court and yet again prove that modding is fair use and our actions are legal. Yes, we could. But we decided not to. Going to court will take at least few months of our time and huge amount of efforts, and, at best, we’ll get absolutely nothing. Spending time just to restore status quo is really unproductive, and all the money in the world can’t compensate the loss of time. So, we decided to agree with their claims and we’re stopping distribution of OpenIV.”

At time of writing, Take-Two nor Rockstar has any comment, but for what it's worth, this looks to be the work solely of the publisher, not the developer. Historically, RockStar has always been very friendly and supportive to the modding community, even going so far as to show some off on their own website. It looks like this is Take-Two flexing its muscles and deciding that after ten years, it's time to start being dicks.

The community, of course, is outraged. But it's going to take more than the gentle reassurance of a Take-Two executive for this to blow over.

I'll keep ya'll posted.