Rockstar Games and modders: Why the developers turned away from the community

Rockstar Games has always had a complicated relationship with modders, but in recent years, the situation has worsened significantly. After a wave of mod takedowns in 2021 and the release of The Definitive Edition, publisher Take-Two and the developers have become much less tolerant of fan projects. Why has the company, which once supported modders, now started actively fighting them? Let's find out.

A little-known fact is that the carcols.dat file in Vice City was generated using the fan-made program MultiEdit by Icey, which leaves a corresponding line in the header. Long ago, Illspirit (a well-known modder, co-author of Myriad Islands, and a friend of Icey) reached out to one of Rockstar. While the director didn’t confirm it outright, he suggested that an in-house employee might have added the line as a sign of respect for Icey’s work. He also acknowledged that fan-made tools are sometimes much easier to use than official ones.

It seemed like a clear sign of community support! But it didn’t last long.

One of the first major blows to trust in the modding community was the Hot Coffee scandal in 2005. Before receiving an age rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the developers had removed sexually explicit content from the game. However, instead of deleting it entirely, they merely hid it.

When examining the PlayStation 2 version, modders discovered the code for the mini-game. After the Windows release, modder Patrick Wildenborg developed a modification that restored the removed content, naming it Hot Coffee after the euphemism used in the game. Within four weeks, it was downloaded over a million times.

This led to financial losses and negative publicity for Rockstar. The company initially attempted to shift the blame onto the modders, but due to mounting financial and legal pressures, they were forced to release a patch that fully removed the inappropriate content. This incident was the first warning sign for Rockstar that the community had the ability to uncover inconvenient details of the development process.

Despite the fallout from the Hot Coffee incident, Rockstar actively engaged with the modding community in the following years. The company gathered feedback, openly discussed the upcoming GTA 5, and even highlighted some popular mods on the official Rockstar Games website. For example, in 2011, Rockstar published news about GTA 4 mods, emphasizing the community. However, things began to change in the 2010s when early game assets started leaking through mobile versions of the games.

Since 2011, Rockstar had the idea to port their main games to the new platforms of the time — iOS and Android. This was tied to the 10th anniversary of each game. GTA 3 was released in 2011, GTA Vice City in 2012, San Andreas in 2013-2014, and Liberty City Stories in 2015-2016. During this extended period, the fanbase managed to investigate what was inside these versions and discovered that they contained a significant amount of content from early versions of the games, which had been overlooked by the then-studio War Drum Studios (responsible for porting the main GTA games) and Lucid Games (responsible for porting LCS), who handled the mobile versions. This likely served as a trigger for the publisher and/or developers to pay close attention to modders, as they became more active in uncovering game files that were meant to be kept secret. However, no public legal actions took place at that time. This could be because the developers had already moved away from the 3D universe and, since the release of GTA 4, had been working on the HD universe, with the classic trilogy used for additional profit.

The first incident occurred under Take-Two’s initiative. The publisher blocked a modification aimed at transferring content from Red Dead Redemption 1 into GTA 5. It's important to note that this situation involved the current HD universe, which Rockstar Games continues to work on today. Likely, when the publisher takes action against fan projects, it signals either that they are actively working on a game or have specific plans for it.

This wasn’t the end of it. In 2017, Take-Two began blocking OpenIV, which sparked an intense reaction from the community, leading to review bombing of the studio’s games. Eventually, the bans had to be lifted, but the rules had changed: in addition to banning modifications for online content, transferring content between games was declared a violation of the terms of service. All of this created a negative sentiment toward the publisher, though the community's attitude toward Rockstar remained more lenient.

The second incident occurred a little later, continuing into 2018. It was revealed on GTAForums that a developer console, once owned by Rockstar Games, had ended up in the hands of a few enthusiasts. This unique device, intended for game development, allowed them to extract files from early versions of GTA 5. As a result, a beta build of the game was discovered, containing not only internal files but also early versions of radio stations and other materials not visible in the official game releases. While the files were scrambled, they provided the community with a glimpse into previously inaccessible aspects of GTA 5's development. Soon, these leaked files started appearing on forums, particularly on GTAForums, where active members shared the content. Then, beta audio files were also leaked onto YouTube.

As with any major leak involving large gaming companies, Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games began to take action. A manhunt started for anyone potentially involved in the recent YouTube leak. The primary scapegoat turned out to be the person who uploaded the files to the video-sharing platform. It was later revealed that this was a 14-year-old teenager. When law enforcement arrived at his home, he was charged, and a search was conducted. Personal belongings, including computer equipment and storage devices such as an MP3 player, were seized. Reports suggested that international forces, such as Interpol, were involved in the operation. The teenager found himself at the center of a large-scale legal battle.

What happened next? After the search and threats, the teenager was intimidated with legal consequences, including massive fines. His family had to hire a lawyer to defend his interests. This led to significant financial losses and a decline in the psychological well-being of both the teenager and his family. The teenager signed an agreement that required him not to discuss the situation with anyone. His forum accounts were deleted, and posts related to the leaks were removed. Rumors suggest that he was given an ultimatum: “We can handle this the hard way or the easy way.” By signing the agreement, the teenager avoided going to court.

Over time, as the situation calmed down and the company stopped taking action, the teenager likely felt that his story might be forgotten. It was also revealed that the person representing Rockstar Games, who had been involved in the case, had resigned. This gave the teenager the determination to share his side of the story. As it turned out, the teenager was merely an intermediary between his friend, the owner of the console, and the GTA community. He had never possessed the console or the files, but still became the target of harsh actions from the large company.

The community's reaction was predictable — for many, it was a shock. Most of the GTA community couldn’t believe what had happened. On one hand, Rockstar Games and Take-Two had every right to protect their intellectual property. On the other hand, the company's actions and the pressure placed on a 14-year-old teenager seemed excessive and harsh.

2021 marked a turning point for the GTA series. First, the re3/reVC project, based on reverse engineering and created by fans to enhance older games, emerged in the public eye. This sparked excitement within the community, as the project allowed players to enjoy their favorite games with updated controls and other improvements. However, Take-Two began issuing takedown notices, which eventually led to legal battles. This marked the beginning of an active phase of modding bans, particularly targeting those mods that transferred content from one game to another.

Soon after, news emerged that Rockstar was planning to release The Definitive Edition, official remasters of the older GTA titles. Upon its release in November 2021, the remasters were met with a wave of criticism (they were outsourced to a less experienced team to allow the main Rockstar staff to focus on GTA 6), but the mod bans came to an end. However, many fan-made mods had already been removed at Take-Two's request.

In September 2022, a massive leak of GTA 6 footage occurred, marking one of the largest leaks in gaming industry history involving Rockstar Games. Over 90 videos and fragments of the early game code for GTA 6 surfaced online. The responsibility for the leak was claimed by a 17-year-old British hacker from the Lapsus$ group, which had previously hacked Uber, Microsoft, and NVIDIA. It was later revealed that the suspect was arrested in Oxford (UK). In October 2022, he was found guilty, and the publisher took action to remove the leaked content from various online platforms.

The incident caused a divide among GTA fans. Some were excited about the leak, viewing it as a form of punishment for the failed release of GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. These players felt the studio had become less concerned with the quality of its products. On the other hand, many were disappointed with the appearance of the early GTA 6 version. They understood that the final game would likely be much better and were worried that many would jump to conclusions based on the unfinished footage.

At the end of 2023, a second major leak occurred — this time, a build of GTA 5. Early details from the game, including an early script, map, and more, were revealed. The situation repeated itself: the publisher swiftly took action to remove the content from the internet, wiping out any distribution on file-sharing platforms and elsewhere. This led to even greater secrecy within the company.

As a result, it seems that Rockstar decided the following:

In 2025, a new wave of modding bans took place, which once again sparked dissatisfaction among the community. Notably, popular mods such as GTA Vice City: Nextgen Edition, which significantly enhanced the game's graphics and ported content from GTA Vice City, and Liberty City Preservation, which brought the GTA 4 map into GTA 5, were removed.

The creators of the first mod faced significant issues: their YouTube channel, Revolution Team, was banned. Undeterred, they created a second channel, uploaded a release trailer, and launched a torrent distribution across all their platforms. Meanwhile, the publisher took action through various channels to prevent the spread of the project. Within a week, all distributions and links related to the mentioned mods were removed, and the mod developers ceased work on the mod. This situation once again brought attention to Take-Two's harsh stance on modding, causing significant frustration among fans.

As for the mod that transferred the GTA 4 map to GTA 5, the situation was similar: after the blocking and pressure from Take-Two, the authors were forced to halt development.

It is also important to note situations related to the leaks of official Rockstar materials. At the end of 2024 and throughout January 2025, massive leaks of archival materials occurred. For example:

In these leaks, a character from GTAForums, Johndoe2, was involved. He would buy materials from Rockstar employees and then sell them at inflated prices. His exposure led to a series of new leaks, pointing to the existence of a shadow market for company materials and a betrayer developer within the studio.

Let's consider the situation with the builds — the May 2005 build of Liberty City Stories is particularly interesting. There is a possibility that modders were provided with confidential materials for modification development. The leaked archive of the May build contains content dated from 2018. Surprisingly, the models and textures in this folder can be extracted using various programs. It's likely that one of the modders gained access to the archive of the May 2005 build and used it for transferring models to Vice City.

Thus, the modding bans in 2021 may have been not just an attempt to protect intellectual property, but also a response to the increasingly systematic leaks. However, the gaming community didn’t view this as a justified move, as most users weren’t aware that game source files could be sold on the shadow market. Realizing the scale of the leaks, Take-Two and Rockstar likely decided to completely shut themselves off from the community and tighten control, as transferring content in mods was now often tied to leaked confidential data that should have remained within the company.

Rockstar and Take-Two realized that in today’s world of leaks and modding, even securely hidden information becomes public property. As a result, they chose the path of total control.

It is clear that the former friendly relationship between Rockstar and the community is no longer present. Who is to blame for this? Likely, both sides share the responsibility. Yes, Rockstar Games has every right to protect its intellectual property, which justifies its harsh measures. At the same time, modders and enthusiasts play a key role in maintaining interest in the games, and their work often conflicts with commercial interests. Corporate approach and the desire for creative freedom often clash, leaving little room for compromise.