The protests are in full swing over Take-Two Interactive's shutdown of popular singleplayer modding tool OpenIV. Over 38,000 negative Steam reviews of GTA 5 have now appeared in the past few days, dropping its 'recent' review score to 'Overwhelmingly Negative'. Meanwhile, over 45,000 people have now signed a petition to save OpenIV on change.org.
These efforts have now been joined by an artistic protest, which can be seen above in a video titled The Purge (RIP Mods), posted by YouTube channel GTA Series Videos. The machinima, made in GTA 5 and using OpenIV, depicts agents wearing Rockstar windbreakers and Take-Two Interactive badges serving a cease and desist order. Then, things get violent. In slow-motion, and set to Adagio in G minor, the agents gun down Mario and the Hulk in the street, two characters who have been brought into GTA 5 thanks to mods created using OpenIV. The DeLorean from Back to the Future, from another GTA 5 mod, is blown up. Other characters who have been imported into GTA 5 as mods are shown being killed or imprisoned. Even Harambe isn't spared.
The machinima is, at the same time, a celebration of the creative act of modding and a protest against the shutdown. The video ends by directing viewers to sign the petition to save OpenIV.
Take-Two Interactive has also recently issued legal notices to the creators of GTA Online cheat tools Force Hax and Menyoo, which have shut down amid vague promises to donate the proceeds of the subscription-based cheats to an unnamed charity. Unlike OpenIV, which included measures to prevent users from taking the tools into online play, Force Hax and Menyoo were designed specifically to be used online for cheating and griefing.
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