Take 2 Have Declared Modding In General Illegal, Cease & Desist Sent Against OpenIV

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Take 2, Publisher for Rockstar and other developers like Gearbox, have sent cease and desist notices against the developers of OpenIV, a tool to open and extract files from GTA IV/EFLC, GTA V and Max Pain 3.

The tool in and of itself does nothing to mod the games, just lets you look around inside them, but none the less has now been officially banned from distribution. They have more or less declared modding or assisting in the modding their games in any way illegal.

The Post from the lead developer on the matter

The day, when GTA modding was declared illegal.

GTA modding had long and glorious history.
Since GTA III, people have created lots of different mods: from simple texture replacements to impressive full conversions.

And the modding always was a "gray zone" -- a battlefield between lawyers and PR...

For almost ten years of OpenIV development, we had tried to play as nice as possible and even more:

  • 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...

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).
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.

It was a hard decision, but when any modding activity has been declared illegal, we can't see any possibilities to continue this process,
unless top management of Take-Two company makes an official statement about modding, which can be used in court.

With many thanks for all modding community for all your fantastic creations,
OpenIV team.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

EDIT: Restored the original formatting of the quote from the developer.

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Time to tell Rockstar that they just lost another long-time customer thanks to Take2's actions. Hopefully everyone who loves to mod does the same.

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Not just Rockstar. Take 2 are responsible for a lot of very much loved games.

Pretty big loss, but people are never committed to their boycotts, especially with the game in here. Unfortunately they will carry on as if nothing happened.

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While this sets a dangerous precedent, I commend OpenIV for not fighting it.

4chan will do the fighting for them. I have a feeling the internet is about to make Take-Two's life a living hell. The modding tool is in the wild.

How long do you think it will be before we see some really messed up anti Take-Two mods?
:slight_smile:

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All ready happening. But take two will not care as long as people keep spending money on them and with their portfolio of games including Bethesda and gearbox as well as the xcom series and other fan favourites this will not matter to them even slightly.

I actively hoping now though that the online will be unplayable and destroyed with mods and cheaters. If they make thee servers unuseable to the average honest player take 2 will get no cash from the shark cards which is what this is all about.

So expect GTA Online to be the biggest fuck up you have ever seen an online game get.

On the whole though, this does not even matter to them. They all ready figured they could get away with this and have likely done the math on it.

Sucks as the game people paid money for is now going to be unplayable and a waste of that money.

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Hmm, odd.

For the Borderlands series there are the Gib save editors for each game so far. They allow complete editing of player-characters and the edits do persist into online co-op and whatnot. I've never heard a peep about those being taken down either.

There's also the Civilization games that have mods.

X-COM 2 has mods.

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None of those have a system of micro transaction at stake. GTA Online does. That is what they are trying to protect. They are just going about it the wrong way.

They assume incorrectly that if they stop the modding tools it will stop the cheaters giving out free cash online and thus force people to buy their hideously over priced shark cards. In reality of will ramp up the cheating online in retaliation.

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I should have been more explicit. One thing that will happen is the the news will spread and then people will start to boycott their games. "No mods for GTA VI? I don't want that game then."

Repercussions are a bitch.

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Have you seen the list of games Take 2 publish? No boycott will last.

As reddit so rightly points out.

And again when it happened for Fallout 4. They are all talk and no action.

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I've heard the news a few hours ago and I cannot understand this decision.

I like GTA V and had fun with it on PS4. There were some flaws I disliked in the game but found out about mods that address the issues I have with the game. Hoping when Take Two would stop selling a 4 year old game for $60 that I will buy it so I can replay the game with mods.

Congratulations, Take-Two. I now have zero interest in ever giving you money for many of your games in the foreseeable future. I'm sorry that Rockstar works under them but I just cannot buy their products anymore knowing this fact. Take-Two has destroyed the reason why I, and many other people, would ever buy GTA games on PC and that is modding. If GTA IV didn't have modding, people would have abadon that game a long time ago. It was already bad when you guys take down multiplayer projects like FiveM that work outside of GTA: Online, an online service that I have no interest in playing.

Boycotts don't work by the way. Most people either do not give a damn enough to partake or it sends the wrong message to the publishers.

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This says it all.

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Take Two have a contact form on their website. Be sure to use it to express your feelings.

https://www.take2games.com/contact/

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Screenshot_20170614-220912.png1440x2560 251 KB

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I understand if these companies want to keep modding out of multiplayer, or at least ranked multiplayer, but let me do what a damn well please with singleplayer.

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Chimes well with Bethesdas push for paid mods. This could be the early throes of a concerted effort.

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News has spread and some fans are not happy about it by posting negative reviews on Steam.

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You see, you can't trust the system...

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Jim just went all-out again.

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Damn. Two Jimquisitions in one week and last week was about Take Two.

Thank God for him!

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People will moan and complain, but the reality is that they'll whip out their wallet the moment that GTA VI is available for pre-order ... and Take 2 / Rockstar know this, so they couldn't give two $hits about the modding community.

Take 2 / Rockstar also don't give two $hits about the Linux community either, so they don't see my money any more.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of publishers and developers who do embrace your particular community, so you should seek them out and support them. If we all grew a spine and stuck to our position, market pressures will eventually cause Take 2 / Rockstar to either rethink their policies, or they will fade away and go out of business.

Vote with your wallet!

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