GTA5 may be the most popular game in the world (or one of them- seriously, it’s at 80 million units sold now), but even it cannot afford to piss off its players. And yet, by declaring GTA mods as ‘illegal’ recently, that is exactly what publisher Take 2 have done.
The result? The result is that players are now rising up against the game in droves. Steam reviews for the game have become ‘overwhelmingly negative’ (Steam’s words, not mine), with over 30,000 reviews in the last 30 days being negative– most of them coming after Take 2’s cease and desist for the OpenIV modding tool, and citing their stance against mods as the reason. A petition on Change.Org has over 40,000 signatures, too, as players are demanding that Take 2 reverse their decision.
All of this is well and good- but as long as the game continues to make obscene amounts of money, which it will since the bulk of its sales come from the console version, as well as from GTA: Online, Rockstar and Take 2 are unlikely to care. Plus, I wish I could say that PC players are showing resolve, but the game is currently #7 in Steam’s concurrent players list, with a peak of over 92,000 players playing it at once earlier today.
So… yeah. I support mods, and I empathize with everyone raising their voice against Take 2 (and I have signed that Change.org petition myself). But… I honestly don’t think this is going to work, especially since, even on PC, GTA5 now seems to be too big to fail.
