A cease and desist letter has led to the end of the popular OpenIV modding project that had helped to pave the way for all manner of mods for the Grand Theft Auto series on PC.
Almost ten years of my life were dedicated to @OpenIV and now this time is over. #openiv #modding
— Yuriy K. (@goodnts) June 14, 2017
A Russian developer, GooD-NTS received a cease and desist letter on 5th June accused him of breaking local laws and ordered him to end the project, citing that it allowed “third parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violations of Take-Two’s rights.”
He states that the project has followed:
- Strictly following of Civil Code of Russia (only reverse engineering for interoperability).
- Only clean-room reverse engineering.
- No distribution of original data and code.
- And absolutely no messing with Online…
However, he won’t fight the legal challenge, saying:
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.
In a further statement made to PC Gamer, Take-Two said:
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.
GooD-NTS refutes this explanation, plainly stating that you cannot access online multiplayer with any mods installed.
Naturally, those who indulge in the modding scene for the GTA series are incensed by this, with thousands of replies on the GTA Forums community site.
Via Ars Technica, PC Gamer, GTA Forums
The Lone Steven
Feck you, TakeTwo. You utter greedy cun(SKELETON WARRIORS!) A majority, if not, all OpenIV mods were for singleplayer and the reason of “Oh, but it is for ensuring no-one cheats online” is bullshit. GTAV has had fuck all support for it’s single player and I would have gotten it on PC just for the mods. Now? No real reason to get it on PC or rebuy it. Ok, i’ll rebuy GTAV on PS4 because, it shouldn’t cause a PS4 to sound like a boeing 377 whereas, PS3, it can turn into gatwick airport at times. But FECK YOU TAKETWO!
Miffed? YEs, I am. The one thing that was keeping GTAV single player interesting was mods. The one thing they decide to clamp down is just bs. And worse, there’s no reason to do so other then to be utter pricks. GTA:Online makes thousands/millions, stupid amount of cash and the mods were not affecting it. Whereas, GTA:Online has a reputation of having a ton of cheaters.
And there is NO FECKING SUPPORT FOR SINGLE PLAYER! Literally all updates are for the cash cow. Worse, Rockstar actually encouraged mods. They had more then enough time to do this but nope, let’s wait until the modding scene gets massive then shut it down because feck the users! They are only cash to us!
Just feck you, Taketwo, you bastards in a bastard coated shell with a bastard filling. Pissed? Hell yes. I would get GTAIV on PC. Now? No reason to. This is nothing but a pure vindictive thing by Taketwo and to milk GTA even more.
#fucktaketwo.
You have GTA FFS. It makes millions. Why? Why fecking do this? Why do this when….argh…
This is Konami levels of feck you. Speaking of which, #doublefuckkonami. Because they are being utter pillocks at the moment. More then usual.
But Taketwo, you better reconsider it. There is nothing worse then an entire community scorned.
This really better not start a trend of killing the modding scene on PC.
Poetry and a Pint
Ok…. Totally understand to be a bit miffed with them.
But this comment is a bit over the top.
Regardless of how this effects modding, lets not forget what this company has done for gaming in comparison to others.
The games they have brought to us,
Free updates galore,
Characters, stories and general “feels” theyve shared through games bare into no comparison for a complete meltdown on having iron man as a playable character or some other mod that makes me turn into a flame fired goat (i dont know mods clearly)
They will still hold a strong comminity and still create great games and sell shed loads.
So errrrm fecking calm down and save your stroke for another day.