GTA V flooded with negative reviews on Steam following OpenIV shutdown

Following on from this morning's news that Take-Two had shut down OpenIV, Steam users have taken it upon themselves to voice their concerns directly, tanking Grand Theft Auto V's store rating with a flood of negative reviews. OpenIV was an essential tool that unlocked the files of GTA V, GTA IV and Max Payne 3, allowing modders greater access to the game and paving the way for things like conversion mods.

Take-Two has been heavily policing and shutting down promising mods since the launch of Grand Theft Auto V. However, this time around, the publisher essentially killed off the source, as OpenIV was so widely used by mod makers. This has led to many GTA V owners accusing Take-Two of outright killing the modding scene in one swing.

Now, the game's recent review rating on Steam is ‘Mixed' after previously being listed as ‘Mostly Positive'. Beyond that, the amount of negative reviews on Steam has almost hit the 50,000 mark. Many of the most popular negative reviews list the OpenIV issue as the key reason for the negative review and have thousands of upvotes.

Whether or not this will make an impact on Take-Two's decision remains to be seen. However, at this point, Take-Two seems pretty intent on ridding its games of modding entirely, likely in order to capitalise on new multiplayer components to games.

Rockstar has issued a statement of its own regarding the OpenIV shutdown: “Take-Two's actions were not specifically targeting single player mods. Unfortunately OpenIV enables recent malicious mods that allow harassment of players and interfere with the GTA Online experience for everybody. We are working to figure out how we can continue to support the creative community without negatively impacting our players.”

KitGuru Says: One of the key reasons I think the community feels so betrayed with GTA V is that there was simply no warning. Mods have been successful and hugely popular on PC for all Grand Theft Auto games and Take-Two never took this hard stance against it. Now all of a sudden, they are shutting down community content and it is honestly really disappointing for everyone. I get that GTA Online needs to be more secure but there must be a better way of doing it. How do you guys feel about the OpenIV shutdown? 

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