Fan mods have been the best way for players to engage with their favorite games for the longest time possible, but things go south pretty quickly when developers step in. One of the most recent examples would be a fan mod getting shut down, which would have brought the world of GTA 4 into its successor, GTA 5.
While in hindsight it poses no real threat to the studio, such a mod could have hurt the company’s potential earnings in the long run. However, stepping in and getting it shut down might not have been the best way to go about it, and many are not happy about it, including the studio’s own ex-dev.
We all know how much of a disaster the GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition was. Not only did it fail at bringing a proper remake for the players, Rockstar Games pulled out the original versions of the titles from all storefronts, leaving us with a suboptimal remaster to play around with.
So what happens when gamers take it into their own hands and do Rockstar’s job better than them? Apparently, they get shut down, something that the studio’s own ex-dev isn’t happy about.
I agree. It would be better if R* did quality remasters of their classic games.
— Obbe Vermeij (@ObbeVermeij) January 25, 2025
Obbe Vermeij, a developer who has worked on multiple titles such as GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA 4, has agreed with another user, claiming we deserved a better reword of the original trilogy, insisting that the masses would have been better off if Rockstar worked on making better remasters of the ‘classic games’.
You wanna play as an obscure character from pop culture in GTA 5? Have a go at it; feel free to create an amazingly weird race course with custom assets in the game with modded cars at the same time. However, when you reinvent the whole game at once, that’s where Rockstar Games draws the line.
While the outrage for shutting down the said GTA 4 fan mod project, called The Liberty City preservation project, is totally justified, Vermeij revealed that the studio is forced to shut down such projects in order to protect their own best interests.
Take2/R* are a commercial company.
They will take down mods that interfere with their business interests.
The VC NextGen Edition mod for gta4 directly competes with the Definitive Edition.
The Liberty City preservation project (gta4 in gta5 engine) would interfere with a…
— Obbe Vermeij (@ObbeVermeij) January 25, 2025
The ex-dev essentially reveals that being a commercial company, Rockstar Games, which comes under the Take-Two interactive group, would without hesitation step in to get rid of any mod that would interfere with their business interests.
He also disclosed that the said GTA 5 fan mod that would have brought the world of GTA 4 into the game could have potentially hurt the release of the game’s remaster in the future if the studio decides to make one.
#Dev #Admits #Rockstars #Cruelest #Error #GTA
