Thanks to GTA 5’s online component, GTA Online, anyone installing a mod risks getting a ban should that mod interfere with GTA Online. That’s why a group of modders started working on FiveM, an alternative online mod where they could use mods without worrying about being banned.
FiveM was shut down in August. And, according to the mod’s founder, Take-Two sent private investigators to his home to encourage him to shut down the mod.
“I just got a pair of PIs at my door claiming to be sent by Take-Two,” the modder explains on Reddit, “handing me a phone with a person somewhere in the UK or US or whatever to ‘discuss how to cease my activities with regard to Grand Theft Auto’, that ‘they know what happened before with Activision and want to not get the lawyers involved at this time’, however they ‘have tested their legal standing already and are quite certain of their point’ and ‘aren’t willing to accept any solution other than ceasing my activities’.”
A publisher sending PIs to a modder’s home is extremely troubling, if true, and once again it simply looks like Rockstar and Take-Two would rather nobody modded GTA 5 at all.
Cheers, Eurogamer.