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Rockstar Scoops Up Modding, Roleplay Communities In A Departure From Previous Policy

from the modding-their-behavior dept

It’s important coming into this story to know and note that Rockstar, the publisher behind hit franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, has waged a very public war on modding communities for its games for years now. Despite just how useful these modding communities tend to be in elongating the sales cycle for video games, Rockstar has gone after the tools for making mods for its games, has banned players for using mods even when those mods don’t change online gameplay, has DMCA blitzed the mods themselves, and so on. It’s a very purposeful series of actions clearly based on company policy.

Company policy that is perhaps undergoing some level of change. As Rockstar prepares for the release of GTA 6, the company also scooped up a community of dedicated fans of GTA and Red Dead Redemption 2, a community which has formed around roleplaying within those games and using all kinds of mods.

The team behind the biggest Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 role-playing communities, Cfx.re, is officially becoming part of Rockstar Games. The new partnership comes ahead of the possible launch of GTA VI in 2024, and will lead to an updated policy that officially allows the addition of mods created in the FiveM and RedM communities to the hit open-world games.

“Over the past few years, we’ve watched with excitement as Rockstar’s creative community have found new ways to expand the possibilities of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, particularly through the creation of dedicated roleplay servers,” Rockstar wrote in an August 11 blog post on its website. “As a way to further support those efforts, we recently expanded our policy on mods to officially include those made by the roleplay creative community.”

Despite Rockstar’s reputation on communities like this, this is really cool in a couple of different ways. The minor reversal or allowance on mods will get the headline, and it’s certainly deserving of attention. For a company like Rockstar to relinquish some small amount of control in this manner when it has been so staunchly against mods isn’t insignificant.

And perhaps it goes hand in hand with the other cool thing about all of this: Rockstar embracing a fan community that is doing new and interesting things with its titles.

In addition to allowing users to make all sorts of mods for GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2, the Cfx.re team’s FiveM and RedM clients are also the nexus for massive role-playing communities around the games who use dedicated servers to make elaborate worlds where individual players take on various roles from criminal and civilian to create a more authentic online open world experience.

“This is a huge step forward in the growth of our community, and an opportunity for us to work with Rockstar Games to advance the FiveM platform and the creative community surrounding it,” Cfx.re wrote in a statement. “While our day-to-day operations won’t have any noticeable changes, with Rockstar’s support, we are going to continue to improve our platform and we are truly excited for what this means for our users, community, and creators!”

This doesn’t mean that Rockstar has definitely done a complete one-eighty when it comes to mods and these fan communities, but it’s a start at the very least. And we should appreciate that shifting this kind of company policy in a company as large as Rockstar is a bit like turning the Titanic.

In that context, Rockstar should be encouraged to do more of this and really open things up, allowing its greatest fans to make its properties more valuable through their fandom.

Filed Under: fan communities, fan mods, fans, fivem, modding, mods, redm, role playing, video game mods, video games
Companies: rockstar