We’ve all seen developers and publishers criticizing PC gamers for pirating their games. We’ve also seen a lot of publishers doing their best to fight piracy by implementing draconian DRM protection systems in their games. But can you imagine a company downloading and then selling a pirated/cracked game? Because that’s exactly what Rockstar did.
Discovered by modder ‘Silent’, the Steam version of Midnight Club 2 is actually the version that the scene group “Razor 1911” cracked back in 2003. Let me repeat that. Rockstar was selling on Steam a cracked copy of its game.
OH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE https://t.co/y9jLN61VOf pic.twitter.com/vx8yDcz1B3
— Silent (@__silent_) September 3, 2023
As you can clearly see from the HEX Editor that Silent has used, the Steam version of Midnight Club 2 features Razor 1911’s signature. So, instead of releasing the original version of Midnight Club 2, Rockstar went ahead and downloaded a cracked version in order to sell it. And that’s hilarious.
What’s also funnier here is that Rockstar may have done this because it could not be bothered removing the DRM that the original game had. So, I guess it’s easier to simply download a cracked version and distribute it on Steam.
Ironically, this isn’t the first time Rockstar was caught selling cracked games on Steam. Rockstar had previously done the exact same thing with Manhunt and Max Payne 2.
This right here shows why piracy is so important for game preservation. It also shows how hypocritical a lot (not all) of the big gaming companies are. Rockstar was definitely not happy with all the no-DVD/no-CD cracks back in the 90s and 00s. Hell, its parent company is even against mods.
Take-Two has shut down A LOT of mods. Some of them are this AI-powered story mode for GTA 5, Grand Theft Auto IV Definitive Edition Mod, GTA Underground and Red Dead Redemption Damned Enhancement. The publisher also attempted to shut down the reverse-engineered GTA3 & GTA Vice City projects, the VR Mods for Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA 5 & Mafia, FiveM, and the Hot Coffee mod for Red Dead Redemption 2. And yet here we are with Rockstar selling a cracked version of its games. Oh, how the tables have turned.
Lastly, Midnight Club 2 is no longer available for purchase on Steam as Rockstar delisted it back in 2021. So, technically, the company is no longer selling this cracked version of MC2 on Steam. Still, can you blame PC gamers for pirating this game when Rockstar had the nerve to sell its cracked version? But then again, this is the same company that polished the mobile versions of GTA Trilogy, and then called them the “Definitive Editions“.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Who to blame when you pirate your own game *scratches head.
This is not first time , Rockstar games has done that 😂🤣 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fc7f12061c58d592ad2b81bc400fdc05795a8dffe53777c88261f792065dd01.png
Cockstar didn’t even bothered to re-programme their own game.
Had you read the article, you’d notice that this information is already there.
This is not first time , Rockstar games has done that 😂🤣 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fc7f12061c58d592ad2b81bc400fdc05795a8dffe53777c88261f792065dd01.png
Yet another reason in a very, in a very long line of reasons as to why players should avoid Rockstar like the preverbial plague. They are just reminding the world + dog yet again, of the give a f**k calibre of
c**ts, sorry execs at Rockstar.This reminds me when ubisoft fixed crashes in rainbow six vegas 2 by…wait for it…using a crack. LMAO, the solution was there all along ,stop using drm.
Also when it comes to game preservation, the remastered collection had heavy censorship, such as removing the confederate flags from the biker gang. Gta v remastered removed a trans or crossdresser character and i dont know about the red dead redemption remake but there is a line in the original when you enter the casino that isays that jws control the government, then you got the last of us uglification of all female characters in the remaster. Then you got ubisoft removing a character description in ac valahala because its ableist to describe that guy has a scar so some woke loon with pronouns and rainbow hair whined about it and was changed, then you got some graffiti in diviision 2 being pro cop or something removed, then you have ac odyseey changing the story in dlc where your character has a baby that offended the lgbtq mafia , it was like forced conversion they said, so they changed it. Then you got in watch dogs legion they removed some guardian journalist who was a radio host in the game because she said something “transphobic”.
Why would anyone support these companies and buy their games is beyond me, like empress said in a interview with wired “ubisoft does not remove drm even after the game is cracked because they want to feel superior than you and control you”
stop buying games from ubisoft and rockstar and ea.
I remember that game, played the heck out of it back then loved it.
agreed, great game, I still play it now 😀
Crackstar
Hilarious!
Maybe Rockstar’s lawyers should contact Rockstar’s lawyers and threaten to sue themselves. After all, they say that piracy is a crime. Surely Steam doesn’t allow a cracked version of a game to be sold there as well.
people are hyping gta 6 but they don’t understand what they are getting into (its a trap), it will be monetized as hell till the end, so if you continue playing gta 6 for 1- 2 year continous you will end up spending at around 800-900 dollar on one single game, thanks to microtransaction items & stuff ingame
You don’t have to spend more than the base price.
Right? No one *forces* you to buy DLC. I can’t give half a crap about outfits/weapon skins. I don’t understand who DOES. I *DO* tend to buy story DLC on games I like.
If you buy cosmetics, stop complaining about their cost! You, personally, are the reason they exist and cost money in the first place!
But they made their games grindy on purpose to encourage people to pull out the credit card. Not everyone is a teenager or unemployed bum that has the time to no life grindy live service games.
A co-worker recently asked me to play GTA Online with him to do group content like heists. I’d have to start from square one and grind for everything to be competitive, so I turned him down.
Still a decision made solely by the user.
As the dude above clearly stated, if YOU chose to buy something in game, you’re the problem, not the game.
Also it will be super uber woke as the writers left and their showcase was not showing the game but saying how woke they are.
-cringe writing
-gutted singeplayer
-hyper monetization
-banning mods
No thanks bro, id rather play something else.
This kind of game has nothing to offer for more than 10 years already.
yep RS is well past it’s prime w 4/5/rdr1/2 and I still play SA and VC, max payne 2 one of my favorites as well, LA Noire is great game too. Only lame remasters and straight ports of old ip AND GTAO money printing. The marxist politics were always there just more subtle in older games and it’s going to be full force in 6 no doubt even if it’s disguised as satire. V=bearded venus-inana-bapho cult. 6 is going to be AWFUL.
Hilarious!
And yet people are s*cking them online just because they modeled horse balls and this makes me astronomically angry
Apples and Oranges.
The attention to detail and all the brilliance of RDR2 can be praised, so can their bad business models for GTAO/RDO and monetization can be criticized.
RDR2 is a hugely overrated and dated game, praise it if you wish, i won’t
Too bad for you. I guess I won’t stop you from willingly stepping into the “being wrong” category.
Thanks for saving my time, i actually never listen to Rockstar fans anyway, most of them don’t know what game design means
Aww look, the creature tried a cute “no u” projection.
Lemme guess, it’ll harp on about RDR2’s mission structure and claim that it’s bad overall game design as a whole?
So you learned 2 words and came back here 2 months later to reply ?
The creature is really trying to deflect and use non-sequiturs because it can’t counter any facts from me.
It can continue to willingly be wrong, I have no problem with its opinion. Just with it not wanting to acknowledge being wrong.
LOOK THE HORSE POOPS AND THE CORPSES DECAY OVER TIME.
Cool how does that make rdr 2 not a woke cringefest with dated gameplay and a awful last act?
Braindead social media users (wait, this is pleonasm) are the ones who move the sales, so ofc these devs know what to do to take advantage of it. Just look at that cräp they call a game (Baldurs Gate) and the tatics used to sell it.
That’s funny as sh*t lmfao
Not even surprised, it happens with emulation all the time as well.
John. I like the piracy related news, really unique touch. Gaymer goys: Don’t support Denuvo. Be patient and wait for them to remove the tumor from the gayme or -redacted-
Same sh*t or worse was done with Ubisoft when wanted to “remove” StarForce, those lazy fools decided to go the easy way, and took RELOADED cracked files and added them into patch…
Don’t see an issue with them selling their own game with cracked drm.
The issue is that they will use their legal team to f*k the people who cracked these games or even mod them, but will then do things like these.
If there was no piracy or cracking scene, if people weren’t sharing files around and we were left at the whims of these companies, we would have be losing a ton of games to time.
Doing something like this is admitting they are wrong but still making the same mistake.
Lol yeah second playthrough of rdr1 ryu and it’s the best emu version overall, most updated and unfortunately if we ever get an rdr1 remaster it’ll likely be crap and years from now, unless this switch release was a prelude to drum up interest before they release it who knows. It’s almost all there in rdr2 anyways mex needs fleshing out more but it’s mostly there geography wise.
Nah, at this point RDR1 in Ryu gives you everything you need. ( if you want that Kb + mouse for extra PCness, that’s possible too) – yeah that wins it for most people and it runs so… natively like, that people stopped waiting for a PC release immediately.
That’s what I said btw, RYU I’m second play through both main and UN and yeah it’s the best version most stremlined BUT a NATIVE PC version would be great, instead of the emu lower perf, could get tons of mods for it, upscaling texture packs etc etc etc Heck they could just use the RDR2 assets AS IS today and make 1 with it or add on into 2, but nope.
I’m going to assume that they actually fixed Undead Nightmare for the new Switch port? The game had been broken for years on Xbox/PS3 if you had the newest patch installed. Over extended periods of play the game would break due to the headless zombies glitch. Reloading your last save or trying to uninstall the newest patch were your only fixes.
Hmm… Let’s keep it real…
Yes, Rockstar did pirate itself, not even just crack itself but pirate itself from an external source, and on top of that it sells it which is another level of egregious, but this isn’t something that a serious company owning some software would ever have the need or desire of doing, so i wouldn’t make a case of it as it’s a very ridiculous edge case.
Had they cracked themselves and republished it, it wouldn’t be so much a matter of piracy, more just cracking.
Piracy as in evading payment for a software product is a different factor, though inevitably necessary if the software is not being distributed anymore.
Game preservation happens with piracy, not cracking, so your argument is dumb and wrong.
These companies have proved countless times that they cannot and do not want to provide copies of their older games, some don’t even realize they own certains IPs.
To this day I still cannot buy an official copy of any Battlefield game prior to Bad Company 2 thanks to EA feeling the need to force me to play their modern crap as they see their older games as competition to the newer ones.
Absolute insanity.
You’re right in some part, edited my previous comment.
FG for president… /s
Well all the chads of old left years ago, modern day coders have no idea how to remove SecuROM 😂
lol wtf?!
That being said, Razor1911 has been instrumental for decades in cracking games…they are AWESOME!
KEK
Y por eso no siento culpa al pir4t3ar :v
So now I can say all of my games are R* games!
Their lawyer need to sue their own company of making profit by dstributing pirated copy of the game
This was beautiful Admin. Thank you for your reflections.