The announcement of the potential arrival of a series of remasters of old opuses in the series Grand Theft Auto has undeniably been emulated. But not only, because the publisher Take-Two Interactive has embarked on a crusade in the direction of amateur and unofficial projects that it wishes to eliminate before the launch of the compilation of the three remasters.
The publisher launched hostilities in the middle of last month by attacking well-known modding sites, ModDB and Liberty City, with the aim of removing from circulation a handful of content created by amateur developers for GTA III, GTA: Vice City or GTA V.
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Take-Two Interactive prepares the ground…
A few days ago, Take-Two Interactive reignited the legal battles by targeting the re3 and reVC projects, which are reverse-engineered versions of GTA III and GTA: Vice City created by a group of programmers. This reverse engineering technique has notably made it possible to port these relatively old games to new platforms, Switch in mind, while offering them improvements.
Already targeted by a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), the programmers had to face this time the lawyers of Take-Two Interactive, determined to make a clean sweep of all these amateur projects in anticipation of the release of the three remasters of Grand Theft Auto.
However, reverse engineering is legally legal, but Take-Two seems determined to find the fault and evokes, among other things, a "copyright violation" or a desire, on the part of the developers, to harm publisher by trying to "capture a market that belongs to Take-Two".
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… and use great means!
While the penalties fall for some, Take-Two is using the media fallout of its actions to intimidate the modding communities around the Grand Theft Auto franchises. Due to the growing hostility displayed by the publisher, some have already made their arrangements.
The result of six years of work, it is the GTA Underground project which is now closing its doors before attracting the wrath of Take-Two Interactive. This ambitious mod aimed to bring together all of Rockstar's worlds (GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, Manhunt, Bully, etc.) in a single map.
The developers explained that "due to the growing hostility towards the modding community and the imminent danger to our mental and financial well-being, we have officially ceased development of GTA: Underground and taken all downloads offline." . They are not let down, however, because, after a few thanks to the community, they have announced that they now want to work on their own game.
Sources : PCGamer, Eurogamer
