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press release luckie 19 June 2017, 21:44

Players massively down-voting GTA V on Steam after Take-Two shuts down OpenIV mod tool

You don't want to mess with modders, even when you are a big fish like Take-Two and Rockstar. GTA V is currently getting mostly negative reviews on Steam, which is a response for the takedown of OpenIV modding tool.

A couple of days ago the creators of OpenIV informed the community that their tool, which had been a foundation for modding Grand Theft Auto games for almost 10 years, had been taken down at Take-Two’s request. We didn’t have to wait long for angry players’ response. Steam users have apparently launched a crusade against Grand Theft Auto V and are massively down-voting the game, SteamSpy reports on Twitter. Right now the recent game user reviews on Steam are overwhelmingly negative with the overall score set at mixed. There is also a petition running for Rockstar to bring back OpenIV.

Players massively down-voting GTA V on Steam after Take-Two shuts down OpenIV mod tool - picture #1
Players are not happy with OpenIV takedown.

Why would Take-Two take down the modding tool in the first place? Their explanation, included in the Cease-and-Desist letter sent to OpenIV team on June 5, 2017, was that the program would “allow third parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation of Take-Two's rights”. Rockstar sent this statement to PC Gamer:

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.