The Grand Theft Auto is one of the best-selling series in video game history, selling millions of copies in each installment since the first one was published in 1997. With most talking about the leaked release date of GTA 6, there are those who have been looking back, and have unfortunately found themselves in hot water because of it.
In a recent report, a fan project which looked at reverse-engineering the source code for Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City, has been hit with a takedown order from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The project has been in the making for a number of years, and was even made available on GitHub. The idea was to enable the modding community to bring new and interesting aspects to the classic games, such as ray-tracing and the ability to port to other platforms.
The source indicates that the project's chief creator says they were hit with a DMCA takedown allegedly from Rockstar's parent company Take-Two. The takedown says the source codes infringe on copyright of both Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City and subsequently all files have been removed from GitHub due to "unauthorized" use of intellectual property owned by the parent company. This is not the first time a company has taken down fan projects, either. Earlier this year, Nintendo removed hundreds of fan games from sites such as Game Jolt.
The fans behind the reverse-engineered code did state they were worried about Rockstar and/or Take-Two intervening on the project, and despite trying to stay "under the radar," they received a lot of attention once the Switch ports became available. It's hardly surprising they were concerned about the studio coming after them. Rockstar have built something of a reputation over the years for their controversial antics. Many will remember the infamous "Hot Coffee" mod for San Andreas in which the company blamed the community for the interactive sex mod which was already buried in the game's official code.
With news of the DMCA takedown, the reverse-engineers' other project, which looks at doing a similar thing to Liberty City Stories on the PSP, has an uncertain future. It's unlikely that Rockstar/Take-Two will take kindly to any tinkering with their IP's source code, but if it does see the light of day, it will be the first time the PSP Grand Theft Auto game will have a PC port.