GTA V OpenIV Modding Tool Available Again, Gets New Update

After two weeks of controversy, Take-Two has apparently decided to tacitly retract their cease-and-desist order against OpenIV. The backlash from the community, which included the bombardment of GTA V Steam reviews, seems to have done the trick. Even Rockstar weighed in on the issue, managing to convince Take-Two to stand down.

For those just tuning in, OpenIV is a hugely popular modding tool for GTA V. Not long ago, Take-Two Interactive hit them with a cease-and-desist order, under the pretext that the mod allowed players to cheat in GTA Online (which, for the record, is at least partially true). The community was outraged, and staged a huge online protest and boycott of Take-Two. Among other things, they took to the GTA V Steam page and bombarded it with negative reviews so much that the current reviews stand firmly at Overwhelmingly Negative.

Responding to the controversy, it seems that Rockstar Games entered discussions with Take-Two and managed to make them change their minds. They posted about it on the Rockstar official website, explaining the new agreement. Here’s a snippet from the post:

Rockstar Games believes in reasonable fan creativity, and, in particular, wants creators to showcase their passion for our games. After discussions with Take-Two, Take-Two has agreed that it generally will not take legal action against third-party projects involving Rockstar’s PC games that are single-player, non-commercial, and respect the intellectual property (IP) rights of third parties.

Apparently, it worked. OpenIV seems to be back, and it even got a new minor update, fixing some bugs and other small stuff. Apparently, the fans have won, at least, for now. What’s interesting about this whole situation is that GTA V sales have skyrocketed in the meantime. The game even made it to Number 1 in UK sales charts. I guess there really is no such thing as bad press.