Take-Two Interactive Bullying Red Dead Redemption Modder

• Red Dead Redemption Damned Enhancement Project is a port of RDR to the PC.
• The port was announced as cancelled recently when Take-Two Interactive sued the port’s creator.
• Take-Two do not deserve your support, and definitely don’t deserve any sympathy.

Modders are an important part of a game community. They can keep certain games going for years after their release. Mods have even produced entirely new genres, such as the MOBA. It seems like Take-Two Interactive has decided that they don’t like the work of one particular Red Dead Redemption modder.

The news came out the day after Christmas that Take-Two had filed a lawsuit against modder Gaming Damned. The lawsuit seems to be aimed at stopping the development of an enhanced PC port of Red Dead Redemption. Because, apparently even though it’s been nearly a decade, Take-Two doesn’t want anyone else porting their game either.

Red Dead Redemption Belongs on PC

The mod was based on an emulated console version of Red Dead Redemption. It features, or rather featured, enhanced textures and higher resolutions. Effectively, it wasn’t just porting the game to a PC, it was also bringing the game into line with modern gaming standards.

Now it’s not at all shocking that Take-Two tried to sue the modder. After all, here was a fan of their game, porting it to PC without asking for money from anyone. How could they possibly let this one stand?! Especially when they could take nine years to port the game and make money from it.

The modder tweeted about his inability to talk about the port due to the ongoing lawsuit. | Source: Twitter

Take-Two Interactive Don’t Deserve Defending

There have been a few people online defending Take-Two Interactive for suing this modder. Many have said that an unofficial port is not governed by the same fair use protection that many mods enjoy. Take-Two has also claimed they asked the modder to stop repeatedly.

As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter what Take-Two said or did. They’re a massive company. Realistically they won’t be vastly affected by the work of a single modder. If Take-Two really cared about people wanting to play a near-decade-old game on their PCs, they would probably have ported it themselves.

Maybe, just maybe, the port was on shaky legal ground. Morally though it’s difficult to see anything wrong with the port. It might have had a net positive impact when your money is no longer going to a company which has pushed its developers into ridiculous crunch times to make deadlines.

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.

Last modified: December 31, 2019 01:29 UTC

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