This whole "Cease and Desist," corporate international/multi-platform contact letter raises a lot of red flags from what the OpenIV team has and has not said.
For the record, Take Two Interactive is a company valued at over $1b and growing since the release of GTA V. It has stock on the NYSE. Furthermore, Rockstar Games and 2K Games are subsidiaries of Take Two Interactive (T2 owns both companies and their outlets).
I did not think it was a big deal at first, but it has certainly been raising a stink. However, I'm optimistic this is either fake or an unintended mistake. There are some red flags and inconsistencies that tip off to a possible phoney.
T2 Interactive owns Rockstar Games - RSG develops and publishes, as well as handles all point-of-contact interaction with customers and community on behalf of T2 if it is a Rockstar game. RSG has never implemented any intentional counter-modification update or feature and, as mentioned prior in this thread by Thero with proof, they have even supported it. This is very inconsistent with Take Two Interactive's supposed Cease and Desist letter.
As for the letter, Take Two Interactive has confirmed with and through RSG in the past (by their own operation) the legality and availability of modding in GTAIV and GTAV. It's odd that the letter comes unprompted and right after a DLC update that does not affect infrastructure or other critical files that would obstruct or disable OpenIV. The largest alarm to the credibility of the letter is the grammatical errors of the document and its delivery over international jurisdiction. It is quite odd, legally and operationally, for a company to send a letter to cease and desist under terms of another jurisdiction to just one individual in a different legal jurisdiction in another country Furthermore, the document's authenticity is at large (I have not seen the letter, but if it is as bad as Deputy Rourke implies, then it seems largely debatable).
The timing of it all contributes to the suspicion. After a significant update, but nonetheless at perhaps the least critical time for GTAV sales and GTAO interaction. Four years into GTAV, there is no overt financial motivation by either company to discourage modding and even go as far to cease it. As RSG said themselves, they support it and, obviously, it attracts even more sales because of more content. It seems irrelevant, out of character, and inconsistent for Take Two Interactive to pen the Cease and Desist letter.
Laying all of this out, it seems even more indicative to me that the letter is false. It just doesn't add up. If it is not false, then I am not worried. There will be other ways, and RSG and T2 will identify their fault eventually, especially here in the closing one to two years of GTAV (four years later). If not, I have faith in the community to come back. This community always has, just look where we are today and what they're capable of.
Until next time.
