Fans Tank Steam Reviews Of GTA V As Popular Mod Tool OpenIV Gets Taken Down

Here’s a peculiar situation. It’s known that the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V is thriving with mods, but some of them enable hooks that can potentially alter the experience of the multiplayer experience (and the main money maker nowadays): GTA Online. Rockstar’s parent company Take-two are currently issuing various cease and desist orders for various modding solutions in order to stop these rampant hacks from disrupting the multiplayer, which unfortunately meant closing down one of the most used modding tool for the community: OpenIV.

OpenIV began life for use in GTA IV as an editor and archive manager. It has since been the tool to create as well as installing mods for various games including the two GTA IV single player DLCs, Max Payne 3 and GTA V. With the cease and desist order, OpenIV will now halt its distribution- you won’t easily find the link to download it anymore.

In a post related to the news, the OpenIV issued this statement:

“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.”

Going to court is indeed expensive, especially if you are up against a large corporation with deep pockets like Take-Two. In their defence, the publisher is not against the mods themselves, but the potential loophole that the tool can be used to hack their multiplayer online service. Here’s a statement from Take-Two:

“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.”

Take-Two has then made moves at more malicious mods, including a paid subscription mod called Force Hax.

However, fans are not taking it lightly that a well-beloved mod tool is being taken away. OpenIV is essential to the modding and machinima community, and the loss of OpenIV is a large blow to them. It stings further that the developers of the tool has always made measures to stop it interacting with GTA Online and Rockstar previously were promoting mods enabled by OpenIV.

If you look at the Steam page for GTA V, the recent reviews are now overwhelmingly negative in response to this case. A Change.org petition demanding OpenIV to be restored reached 50,000 signatures. There are now videos not only voicing against this decision, but also a machinima depicting the death of OpenIV, being killed by Rockstar no less.

It is understandable from a business perspective why Rockstar and Take-Two are going this route: taking down hacks that disrupts the GTA Online experience is to ensure everyone playing it, especially paying players who invests in those micro-transactions, get their money worth. But is it worth angering the various single-player communities? Mods are the only way these folks are getting new content as Rockstar are now solely focusing on GTA Online.

It’s a fine line for the publisher to tread, but we will see how the story will unfold. Taking the easy way out by going the legal way may not be the best solution here.

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