As we’ve already reported, Take-Two has been taking down numerous popular mods for Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas. Not only that, but Take-Two attempted to take down RE3; a project that reverse-engineered GTA III and Vice City.
Now while Take-Two was initially successful with this, GitHub has restored its page and the project is once again available for download. And, in a shocking turn of events, Take-Two has filed a lawsuit against the team behind it.
Before continuing, reverse engineering is, actually, legal. Think of this as emulation (more or less). This reverse-engineered project requires the original PC assets of GTA 3, otherwise, it won’t work. In short, you’ll need a legal copy of Grand Theft Auto 3 PC in order to run it. As such, Take-Two does not really have a case in its hands. Still, this did not stop the company from attempting to “bully” the team.
Take-Two notes in its lawsuit that the team violated its EULA. The company notes that its EULA forbids people from reverse engineering these classic games.
However, this EULA applies only to those that have played the games (as only gamers are asked to comply with it). Thus, those that have not played it, can still reverse engineer them.
To be honest, this reminds me of the lawsuits we saw back in the PS1 days. Sony attempted to sue the creators of the Playstation emulator, Bleem! And in case you’re wondering, Sony did not win that fight.
My guess is that Take-Two is using this lawsuit as a means to threaten the RE3 team and nothing more. The company is obviously using its resources so that it can force the modders to abandon their project. And this could work if the RE3 team cannot afford a lawyer.
Lastly, there are rumors suggesting that Take-Two is working on official remasters for GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas. This may be why the company took down these unofficial remasters of Vice City and San Andreas. And, as its CEO Strauss Zelnick has stated, it will issue takedowns if its economy is threatened.
It will be interesting to see how the RE3 team will respond to this lawsuit!
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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