Over the past several days and without warning, Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive has been issuing DMCA takedowns to the most popular mods for older GTA games, some of which date as far back as 2005. Grand Theft Auto has been at the forefront of gaming culture and the main target of controversy since its first release back in 1997, ranging from the old accusation of the games being a "murder simulator" to the more recent events surrounding Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar's controversial work ethics and questionable decisions for the series. Despite the controversies, or in part thanks to them, the series is hailed as one of the biggest successes in the industry, and Grand Theft Auto 5 is famously the second best-selling game of all time.
This is not the first time the developer has gone against the modding community. Back in 2017, the publisher forced OpenIV, a major modding tool for GTA, to shut down completely. Eventually, because of the massive uproar from the community following the takedown, the publisher went back on this decision with a new set of rules for modders. This set of rules changed two years later, however, adding a section that targets all of the game series' biggest and most popular mods. "This does not apply to... (iii) use or importation of other IP (including other Rockstar IP) in the project; or (iv) making new games, stories, missions, or maps." This was already a big disappointment for players hoping for mod support in the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto 6, but now it appears that the company is taking enforcement of this rule to the next level, and not just for GTA 5.
The news hit the mainstream media on July 17 (via Kotaku) as multiple reports from popular modders claimed that their projects for older games in the series were completely taken down following DMCA claims from publisher Take-Two Interactive. A comprehensive post from Ash_735 details the full scale of the takedowns along with theories and reactions from the mod creators affected. Taking a look at the ModDB pages for mods such as GTA: Liberty City, a mod released for Vice City way back in 2005, reveals that the projects have, indeed, been deleted from the site. At the time of writing, Take-Two has been unresponsive to game news outlets as well as the mod creators hit with the takedowns.
One of the targeted creators, Silent, has been very verbal about the company's decision and its effects on the modding community, stating "...now someone either in Rockstar or Take Two decided that they don't need modding anymore and are successively weeding it out, and no one knows how far they are going to take this. I've been modding these games since 2008, but this might be time to go." While Take-Two has earned a reputation for its historical hatred of mods, nobody in the modding community was expecting their work for the older games to still be a target for the massive publisher.
Two popular theories behind these takedowns include the rumors that remasters for these older GTA games are in development or that Take-Two is trying to use the news of the latest GTA Online update to hide the massive DMCA spree, but of course these are just speculation since the publisher remains silent on the matter. It's unfortunate that the publisher has taken such a strong stance against modding, as other games and their communities have greatly benefited from the support of these fan-made modifications. This decision looks to have much larger consequences than the publisher has realized, as many big supporters and creators for Grand Theft Auto are now turning away from the series they loved most.