After last week’s turmoil, the OpenIV modding tool closure caused, Rockstar Games has come up with a statement to address its stance on the mods in GTA 5 Online. The announcement hints at a possible positive outcome of the modding tools shutdown issue, but it is not exactly what GTA 5 communities have expected.
According to a post, available on its official website, Rockstar reveals it entered into discussions with Take-Two Interactive. The statement reads: “Rockstar Games believes in reasonable fan creativity… and wants creators to showcase their passion for our games”. Fans got an official confirmation that Take-Two will not take legal actions against third party projects related to single-player, non-commercial, or intellectual property rights violations.
However, the above confirmation is not applicable to multiplayer or online services, tools and functions that could impact the multiplayer or online services. Take-Two Interactive is still allowed to revise, revoke or withdraw statement’s clauses at any time.
The statement does not clarify the fate of the GTA5 mods and the OpenIV, in particular. Although Rockstar explicitly stated that Take-Two is targeting only mods that affect GTA Online, fans still have no clue as to how they will be able to modify the single player experience without facilitating cheating.
Essentially, Rockstar Games may allow players to use the modes they currently have, but they will not be able to create new ones.
All that started when Take-Two Interactive sent a cease and desist letter to the OpenIV developer. As a result, GTA5 players sparked off an online riot. Apart from starting a petition and flooding the forums with negative comments, they sunk the GTA5 average user review score on Steam.
Take-Two reassured GTA 5 fans that it has never meant to mess up with the single player mods, and developer’s objective was removing the “malicious mods”. Nevertheless, that announcement proved ineffective against the massive outcry.
The reason for fans’ outrage was that the OpenIV allowed them to decrypt, read and edit the GTA Online proprietary file format. However, some players took unfair advantage of the single player modding. Consequently, the cheating had a negative impact on the in-game experience of players who have not used any dishonest methods for tinkering with the game.
Meanwhile, OpenIV released an update, containing bug fixes and small improvements. The update is an indication that the tool development was not discontinued. At the time of publication, the developer has not taken down the announcement about the OpenIV closure. We remain committed to informing you if any good news arrives.
