Take-Two settles lawsuit against GTA modders but threatens to “hunt down” others

Take-Two has settled one particular lawsuit against a prominent group of GTA modders, but has already threatened to “hunt down” others down the line.

In September 2021, Take-Two served a lawsuit to a team of modders that had developed a project to reverse engineer the source code of GTA 3 and GTA Vice City. The project sought to fix a number of issues that plagues the original games, and to hopefully build ports for other consoles. 

The mod also came out around the time of the disastrous launch of the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, a port that came out to critical failure and was met with criticisms from players and reviewers alike. So rough in fact, it even forced out an apology from Rockstar. 

GTA 3, included in the Definitive Edition, came out to a disastrous launch.

A week after the announcement of both modding projects, Take-Two enacted DMCA takedown against the projects on GitHub, which they followed. However, the modders issued counterclaims shortly after which saw both projects go back live for public download.

This came after that the game company filed a lawsuit against them, claiming they are owed over $300,000 in damages. Both parties were due to go to court this year, however, both parties have since decided to settle out of court. 

Update: Take-Two Interactive has filed a second Notice of Dismissal, including veteran mod developer Ash R. and 2-10 John Does.

This court case is officially closed. It’s unlikely Take-Two will share the agreement publicly. https://t.co/Ade1TAZWNB pic.twitter.com/HV62yKTair

— Ben (@videotechuk_) April 4, 2023

In a court document filed by Take-Two on April 4, they formally dismissed the lawsuit and have settled out of the legal system. However, their initial dismissal did not include all defendants as only four of them were mentioned. 

It was only the next day on April 5 when they fully dismissed all the remaining defendants. And with the second dismissal filing, it means this lawsuit is now officially closed. However, this means the modding team will need to pay for its own legal fees, which could certainly add up.

According to one industry reporter , Take-Two still wants to “hunt down the “remaining unnamed defendants”, which means the company is still looking to sue other modders who worked on the project. 

The amount which Take-Two and the modders have settled on is not public, thus, it is unclear if the company got the $300,000 in damages they initially demanded.