Mod-maker Luke Ross is known for his extensive work in adding VR support to games that wouldn’t traditionally allow for it. However, his work has also been the target of companies issuing DMCA takedown requests due to his mods being available only through a Patreon subscription. The latest of these takedown requests comes from CD Projekt, who Ross has confirmed has caused him to remove the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod from his offerings.
In a post on his Patreon, Ross wrote about CD Projekt following the actions taken by Take-Two Interactive—referring to the parent company of Rockstar Games having issued DMCA takedown request to remove mods for Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, as well as for Hangar 13’s Mafia: Definitive Edition back in 2022.
“Now that the dust has settled, I’m even more sorry to announce that we are leaving behind an adventure that so many of you deeply loved and enjoyed. CD PROJEKT S.A. decided that they would follow in Take-Two Interactive Software’s steps and issued a DMCA notice against me for the removal of the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod,” wrote Ross.
He also addressed the fact that the only way CD Projekt would have allowed work on the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod to continue would be if Ross were to stop locking access to it behind a Patreon subscription. Declining to do the work for free, Ross decided to take the mod down instead.
“At least they were a little more open about it, and I could get a reply both from their legal department and from the VP of business development. But in the end it amounted to the same iron-clad corpo logic: every little action that a company takes is in the name of money, but everything that modders do must be absolutely for free,” he said.
CD Projekt’s VP of business development Jan Rosner took to social media to offer further clarification, noting that the mod’s existence went against the company’s guidelines about mods being available for free. “This directly violates our Fan Content Guidelines: we never allow monetization of our IP without our direct permission and/or an agreement in place,” he wrote. “We were in touch with Luke last week and informed him that he needs to make it free for everyone (with optional donations) or remove it.”
Further in his post, Ross also confirmed that his next project will revolve around bringing VR support to Larian Studios’ award-winning RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. He wrapped up his post by releasing an early version of the mod without putting it through testing.
“Despite everything, I really want to end this on a positive note, so I’ll jump the gun and just release today the new conversion I have been working on, without going through the ordinary testing cycle. Maybe it will be a little rough around the edges, but we’ll take care of that, as we always do,” he wrote.
The takedown of the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod comes just days after Meta announced the closure of number of game development studios under its VR-specific Reality Labs division.
Among the studios affected by these closures are Armature Studios, Twisted Pixel, and Sanzaru Games. Batman: Arkham Shadow developer Camouflaj has also been affected. However, it hasn’t been closed down. Rather, it was hit by lay-offs, and its few remaining employees are now working on projects that better align with Meta’s current business plans.