Red Dead Redemption Mod Cancelled After Take-Two Interactive Sends Threats to Modder
The anticipated mod for Red Dead Redemption entitled the Red Dead Redemption Damned Enhancement Project has been canceled by the mod creator after Rockstar Games’ parent company (Take-Two Interactive) sent legal threats to the modder. The modder in question is also a YouTuber that goes by the online handle GamingDamned. The original trailer for the Red Dead Redemption Damned Enhancement Project (RDRDEP) was posted to GamingDamned’s YouTube channel on August 20th just this year.
The aim of the mod was to give the 2010 western action-adventure open-world title Red Dead Redemption a graphical overhaul. This includes improving the game’s texture quality, UI overhauls and in-game HUD enhancements among other things. The trailer for the mod states that it will only be supported for the Xenia emulator (Xbox 360) and the RPCS3 emulator (PlayStation 3).
Despite this mod being for emulators, GamingDamned posted a disclaimer on the GTA forums that stated:
“You will need to buy the game. And also Rip and Dump the game. Also need to extract ISO to get raw files. The Mod will not contain the game itself just Mod. The Mod be 2 RPF Files easy install.”
So GamingDamned clarifies that an actual working bought copy of the game is needed for the mod to work.
On September 15th, GamingDamned posted a video stating that RDRDEP had been canceled following threats both himself and his family members had received from Take-Two Interactive.
In the video, GamingDamned claims that Take-Two (while leaving out their name in the video and tags repeatedly hints towards being the ones behind it) had obtained personal information pertaining to GamingDamned that wasn’t public such as his phone number and e-mail and contact information of his family members. He states in his video that Take-Two had also text messaged GamingDamned’s mother who also does an interview in the video of what they asked her over the phone. She stated the text was requesting for GamingDamned to contact Take-Two Interactive’s lawyer about RDRDEP. The mother voiced displeasure about how they had gotten hold of her phone number due to it not being publically available and also her not being involved in the mod at all and claimed what they did was unethical. She also ended her interview by voicing support and encouragement for GamingDamned to see about seeking legal actions towards Take-Two for what they have done with regards to the project and also how their lawyer has engaged with both GamingDamned and his mother about the mod.
After the interview, GamingDamned sort of lashed out towards media sites painting them to be part of the problem as to why the mod got shut down due to apparently how some sites were labeling the mod not as a mod but as a “PC port” or “official remaster” to RDR. Additionally, alongside this, he does stress his disclaimer further about how users must own/buy the game for the mod to work. He also elaborated on the reasoning behind how vague he was with regards to how the installation would work was because he wanted to remove as many liabilities from himself as possible to see about stopping the exact thing to what has apparently happened from happening.
Afterward, he then showed his phone which included heavily redacted pieces of information that show a legal representative contacting him both via e-mail and text messaging about wanting to talk to him further about the project.
Now after watching this video I did have a lot of questions and some level of doubt with regards to the story mainly because there were some questionable things included. Such as the text message conversation screenshot. The redacted area where it reads “I am with {REDACTED}” the blank space seems too short to fit in the company name of Take-Two or Rockstar. The only thing that could fit into that redacted space would be an abbreviation of one of these names like “R*” or “T2” but those don’t seem like abbreviations that would seem suitable for any legal representative to use, it seems more to me that it would be more appropriate to use the full trade name when you’re in the position of a legal representative for a company as big as Take-Two Interactive. There was also a short clip shown of the number being rang through Google and a Google Text chat can be seen off to the side which shows a weird exchange between the two which personally to me I wouldn’t expect any lawyer to engage in this way.
I also had questions rise up when I saw that in the e-mail and text messages the T2 representative was referring to it, not as a mod for Red Dead Redemption, but a mod for Red Dead Redemption 2.
However, I did get to restore some trust after I watched an interview done by YouTuber SWEGTA with GamingDamned and SWEGTA is, in my opinion, a trusted source, he has a good backlog in regards to informative videos done on Rockstar Games and their games, particularly Bully related news.
In SWEGTA’s video, GamingDamned elaborates more saying how Take-Two was refusing to tell him what they found to be problematic with the mod and why they wanted to discontinue the development of the mod. Also stating Take-Two used further intimidation saying if GamingDamend were to say anything publicly then they would sue him. GamingDamned also states in the video he is entering conversations with a lawyer with regards to the case he has.
One point that I picked up on that personally to me enhanced the trust that I gave to GamingDamned was when he elaborated more on the phone call that he had with the Take-Two representative. He claimed the conversation was very unprofessional and that the representative was told very little about the mod and the conversation seemed very one-sided where it consisted more of the Take-Two employee telling GamingDamned what to do rather than finding any mutual ground. And this enhanced my trust mainly because it answered questions I had with regards to why the rep referred to it as an RDR 2 mod as an uninformed representative being informed of a Red Dead Redemption mod may very well mistake it being related to the more recently released Red Dead Redemption 2.
As for my overall take on this, while there are still some pieces that are up in the air and questionable, there seems to be substances of evidence there and GamingDamned, in my opinion, did address some of the criticisms inadvertently that I had from his original video in his video with SWEGTA. Plus, I don’t really have any past experience with GamingDamned so I am of course going to be more hesitant with believing something from someone where a lot of the evidence is redacted and they haven’t earned my trust in them yet. However, with SWEGTA he is a trusted source in my books with his back catalog when it comes to news related to Rockstar Games so his endorsement and coverage did give me some more trust in what GamingDamned was saying.
I definitely do see this as being something Take-Two could do. As stated in SWEGTA’s video, Take-Two have just come off the back heels of a controversy where they were targetting a Borderlands 3 YouTuber by the name of SupMatto by sending private investigators to his home and also filing multiple DMCA notices to SupMatto’s channel just last month. This then later resulted in SupMatto’s channel getting terminated from YouTube.
In addition, Take-Two have also had negative interactions with their modding community in the past. Back in June 2017, Take-Two sent legal threats to the creators behind the modding tool OpenIV which was used to mod Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto V on PC. Despite the fact OpenIV only affected single-player, Take-Two tried to argue that it affected multiplayer as well, which was proven to be wrong and after Rockstar themselves jumped in to defend the modding community it was only then Take-Two decided to back down.
I think that Take-Two are in the wrong for demanding the halting of this mod as I feel that mods like these especially coming out for a game that came out 9 years ago helps to extend the game’s lifespan and gives gamers a reason to revisit a game they once loved in a new way. The mod doesn’t act as an alternative version to get and instead relies on pre-existing copies of the game to be owned and GamingDamned outright denounces piracy of the game in the blog post.
One thing that I will disagree with GamingDamned about is the media’s input into the mod’s fate. In both GamingDamned’s original video and in the interview done with SWEGTA he paints the media outlets reporting on the mod as being a reason as to why Take-Two took action. His reason for this was because of an issue he had where the outlets were reporting on the mod not being a mod but a “remaster” or a “PC port.” Now, while I can definitely understand the annoyance tied to this and how it reflects poor research and/or poor choice of words on some of the outlets, I can’t really agree that it was because of these Take-Two did what they did. As I stated, Take-Two has a history of negative treatment of the modding community in the past, so even if the outlets reported it as a mod, even though the reason Take-Two isn’t happy with the mod’s existence remains vague, it seems to me regardless they would still go after it. That and in the text messages and e-mails that were sent the representative stated that it was a “mod” he was contacting GamingDamned about and not the “illegal PC port” or “unofficial re-release” so it seems there wasn’t any misinformation on that front that was given to the Take-Two representative. But then again GamingDamned did state when talking with SWEGTA how ill-informed the representative was during the phone call.
I do wish GamingDamned the best of luck in any legal action he takes against Take-Two and I hope he will be able, in the future, to see his project be brought to life.
