Last year, we informed you that VR game modder Luke Ross made it possible to play the entire Mafia series in VR. The same modder has also launched a VR mod for Grand Theft Auto V and a similar mod for Red Dead Redemption 2.
Besides being playable in VR, the aforementioned games have one more thing in common: the rights to them are owned by Take-Two Interactive. Recently, the publisher has sent a DMCA notice against Ross and his creations.
“Unfortunately, on July 6, 2022, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., parent company of Rockstar Games, Inc. and 2K Games, Inc., saw fit to issue a DMCA notice against me and my creations,” wrote the modder in a Patreon announcement.
To avoid getting his entire Patreon account taken down, Ross decided to sweep out anything that could be even remotely connected or related to games by Rockstar and 2K. So far, his Patreon account is still available, and so is an updated version of the mod in question, which removes support for all the titles under dispute.
Since the issuing of the DMCA notice, Kotaku got in touch with Patreon and received the following response from its representative: “We’ve requested additional clarifying information from the claimant that we’ll pass along, and we’ve offered to connect parties directly. We’ll continue to try to facilitate this conversation.”
Ross certainly isn’t the first modder to ever get in the crosshairs of a major publisher, but Take-Two Interactive seems to be particularly fond of the practice. The developers of GTA Underground, for example, decided to stop working on their mod last year in September due to fears of legal repercussions from the publisher.
