In a recent string of takedowns of long available mods for the GTA franchise, it seems there is now yet another victim to add to the pile. Take-Two has now filed a lawsuit against the devs behind the popular Reverse Engineering Project for Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City.
The project, started by German Developer Adrian Graber, which was called “Re3”, was a reverse engineering mod that allowed GTA 3 and Vice City to be ported to other consoles like the Switch while also featuring modern bug fixes and enhancements not present in the original games. It also allowed other Grand Theft Auto titles to be playable on newer consoles like Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, games that have mostly been relegated to the PS2 and PSP consoles.
“According to Defendants, the re3 GitHub Repositories purportedly contain “the fully reversed source code for GTA III… and GTA [Vice City].” More specifically, via the re3 GitHub Repositories, Defendants are distributing to the public dozens, if not hundreds, of derivative source code files for the Games.”
In addition to this, the Lawsuit clearly mentions, the developer was aware of his illegal actions.
“Defendants are well aware that their conduct is unlawful and infringes Take-Two’s copyrights.
In fact, articles in the gaming press specifically have questioned why the re3 and reVC projects have not been shut down by Take-Two.
Papenhoff admitted that he was “very much worried about that and tried to stay under the radar for as long as possible,” knowing that as soon as Take-Two learned of the project legal action would undoubtedly ensue.”
This also follows the recent leaks discussing the upcoming remasters for the GTA Trilogy that aims to offer modern-day enhancements as well as fixing previously known bugs fixed by modders. The remasters, which were initially supposed to coincide with the release of the next-gen release of Grand Theft Auto V, are now reportedly coming out in late October or early November and launching on pretty much every console you could think of with the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC, Mobile Phones and even ol’ Google Stadia, god bless its soul. The revival of these games was heavily liked and endorsed by the fans.
It's been great to see such a positive response to the re3/reVC project! Now, we need your help as we tackle one of the biggest issues plaguing GTA3/VC on PC and that's the PHYSICS being tied to framerate! Come join us on the reGTA Discord if you can help: https://t.co/TWd6FxMf8g pic.twitter.com/Ck7cPwdoSp
— Ash R. (@Ash_735) February 14, 2021
Take-Two has currently been on a warpath suing and shutting down mods left and right that have been active for years, and this lawsuit makes it more than evident that this company is hell-bent on earning the ire of its fanbase for the sake of corporate greed while we inch ever closer into a less attractive, discount version of Blade Runner and tumble into a sad corporate dystopia where the soul behind a hard-worked project is overtaken by the blatant desire for money. All things aside, as Project Leader “aap” Papenhoff once said, “Open source GTA was probably a dream for money of us” it disappointingly seems that the dream could now be over.
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