Alas, a project to bring Red Dead Redemption to the PC using Grand Theft Auto 5 has come to a sad, yet predictable end. It appears developer Rockstar and publisher Take-Two didn’t take the work of modding group White Team too seriously… that is, until it released a trailer. Shortly after the drop, the video disappeared from YouTube, followed by confirmation from White Team that it had been, er, contacted by Take-Two.
When the clip went missing, users posting in the mod’s announcement thread on GTA Forums speculated — correctly — that Take-Two had made a move on the project. White Team representative and lead programmer, Mr. Leisurewear, soon corroborated the rumours:
I know this is hard pill to swallow, but as you may have noticed we did get contacted, and we sadly have to say we are stopping this project. So thanks guys, we were all so happy to see this, but it isn’t going to happen, sorry.
It’s revealed a few comments later that the mod had been “3 years” in the making. While it’s unfortunate the project has been shut down, one has to ask how wise it was to pour so much time into the endeavour without getting some assurances from Take-Two or Rockstar first.
[WIP|V] Red Dead Redemption V [GTA Forums, via WCCF Tech]
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22 responses to “Red Dead Redemption PC Mod For GTA 5 Goes Down In Legal Flames”
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Its difficult to feel sorry for the team wasting their time on this
Kotaku alone is littered with similar stories, so much so that many of the latest articles like this even have words like “predictably” in the headline
Common sense would dictate that gaining permission first is critical
Predictable at this point but I will never stop thinking it’s a dick move for publishers to shoot down fan projects like this.
It’s the slippery slope unfortunately. If they let any of these projects go to completion then it’s open season for all kinds of shady third parties to f**k with their IP. Sucks but that’s the reality of copyrights.
Couldn’t you just say it’s alright for non-commercial purposes? I think other fan projects have been allowed with this provision before.
A project like this is going to count as a derivative of the original copyrighted work, and probably uses too much of the original to be covered by fair use or fair dealing laws.
A copyright holder might allow such projects if they are non-commercial, but that is at their discretion rather than something required by law.
In this case, I suspect that either (a) Rock Star doesn’t want something like this competing with Red Dead Redemption 2, or (b) Rock Star plans to release their own remastered version of RDR in the lead up to RDR2. In either case, having a free version of unknown quality floating around isn’t something they want to deal with.
Still weakens their copyright if they allow it. It sucks but that’s how it works.
Still don’t understand the guys behind this. Either finish it and seed it on bittorrent for awhile so it’s ‘out there’ before you do big announcements and a trailer, or don’t start at all. It’s going to get shut down, you know that.
Considering they are still making money on Red Dead – especially now its on the Xbox Store – its hardly a dick move. They wanted to give anyone who owns GTA a “free full” game they didnt own.
I really dont blame them. If it is as good as people say – buy the damn game.
Or how about make it available on PC so that people have that OPTION who don’t want to play it at 30 fps on a console? “Buy the damn game” is hardly describing the situation accurately.
“Buy the damn game” has been an accurate description of the situation for at least the past 30 years.
Less than one generation ago, people with a Sega system didn’t bitch and moan that they couldn’t play Super Mario. And they sure as hell couldn’t download it for free and then claim the moral high ground because Nintendo didn’t release a version for their preferred platform.
How class cucked do you have to be to apologize for a game company removing something that would only benefit you?
No they are using Intellect Property of someone without permission. What is so hard to understand? Gamers aren’t owed anything from developers and publishers, it is up to them how their own property is used.
So there stopping a not-for-profit group from porting one of there games to another one of there games… I don’t see T-T or R having any real legal standing here, unless there using actual assets from Red Dead…
it depends how much they port… map, character names, quests, locations? hell they got themselves with the trouble with the name alone. Copyright doesnt come down to assets alone, the ‘whole universe’ of the game of such things is covered, not just the tech. they dont own the rights to any of RDR, it is not their intellectual property.
They don’t want there to be a situation where you can get the game without paying for it, though you’d think in that regard they’d release the damn game on PC.
Devs and publishers I’ll never understand.
9 times out of ten when a publisher does this type of dick move (waiting until a mod gets a lot of support) its because they have a game coming along and they dont want any competition.
This is what happen with Halo Wars and Shadows of Mordor. With Halo wars there was really cool halo mod being made for C&C Generals and just before Halo Wars was announced, the mod team was given a Cease and Desist Order from Mircosoft. Then there was the middle earth mod for Oblivion/skyrim and it too was given a C&D just before Shadow of Mordor was made public
The simple solution to these fan modes is to simply release on a torrent site and let it go from there. Doing press videos and developer diaries is nice but it opens you up to being officially shut down. If you created a mod for the express purpose of you and your friends and it went online well so be it, you couldn’t get rid of it at that point and neither could a publisher.
This is why you don’t copy the TITLE NAME of titles in production by BIG money companies. They should have just made it a cowboy western mod without copying the main lead characters of red dead and they would have been probably good.
However BIG companies reserve the right to FK you up the ass whenever they want, so you always gotta keep that in mind.
Jesus… this is really simple.
1. Complete mod project
2. Upload to torrent
3. Promote finished project:
Like the Pokemon uranium guy
From what I’ve read the mod is not an unsanctioned port of RDR. It is the RDR map and other assets made functional inside the GTA V engine. So it’s not the same thing as them ‘pirating’ the game for the PC audience to consume.
I think most of the comments are aware of that.
Well a lot of them are saying that Rockstar don’t want people getting a game for nothing, but it’s is not RDR in it’s format as a game that is being ported, but just the graphical assets. Still copyrighted, but if you use this mod via GTA code it is not comparable to getting a pirated copy of RDR to play.
One more reason not to buy nor support Rockstar games . Yet another greedy corporate entity like many others who do not listen to their customers , customer support sucks , still charging retail for 5 + year old games and i have been unable to play GTA5 for years because of activation errors due to their flawed anti-piracy security measures on licensed copies . Yet you can download a pirated copy quite easily , but i could care less now to play anything of theirs. EA’s Battlefield 4 went down in flames too with lousy campaigns , no pc version of 1943 , console only games , online only games , no bots , no sandbox style offline maps , mandatory internet requirements …the list of absurdities are endless. Boycott… stop buying and they might actually listen to customer complaints ! There are tons of complaints on these trashware con job companies looking to make more money for less work . If Rockstar were smart they would have helped those modders finish RDR pc version , repackaged and resold it as a pc port . However Rockstar is coming out with its own PC version of RDR , but of course you’ll need a yearly 100$ annual fee to play . The physics , beautiful scenery , western style gunfights in this game is what drew me in , however it is seemed like an unfinished game to me . A huge open world with a whole lot of mostly nothing but the same scripted events and short main story . Although a modded out PC version will make it the refined gem it was meant to be !