Rockstar The Enemy
To quickly preface this post, I'm definitely not a fan of Rockstar or any other gaming company. On the contrary I think Rockstar are greedy and selfish and too stupid to realize that GTA5 modding actually promotes the franchise. I only purchased GTA5 because it was open world and because it could be modded well beyond my expectations. And just for the record I hate Steam, but at least I can revert.
What really makes me laugh are all the moronic comments that show up after an update inevitably breaks functionalities. That's when we start seeing the comments from posters claiming Rockstar is intentionally breaking the game.
Is this a Rockstar conspiracy to end modding aimed at completely alienating a huge segment of its fan and user base? After all, they did try to cease and desist OpenIV, right?
They did. But they desisted themselves when they witnessed the backlash and realized the financial consequences and damage to their reputation.
The truth is they could end modding easily with the proper modifications to the RAGE engine or by simply having the launcher or GTA5 abort when ScriptHookV.dll is detected. Similarly, they could legally shutdown all RP and FiveM servers, particularly the revenue generating ones that compete with GTAO. They could patch to end modding daily if needed, after each attempt of the community to restore modding,
They could also ensure Steam forces updates, updates after attempted reverts, but they haven't. Why don't they? That would end my GTA5 experience.
The truth once more is that they don't care about SP and even less about modders. The update issues are collateral damage, not intentional.
The first games were DOS based, many using OpenGL. Getting these games to work in 2022 can be a challenge without knowledge and modifications. A Microsoft conspiracy to obsolete all games? Nope, just changes and evolution with backwards compatibility just a pipedream, an afterthought.
Funniest part is that there seems to be an interesting correlation between the belief Rockstar is intentionally breaking modding and knowledge of modding. The less a user understands modding, the more likely they are to blame Rockstar and the conspiracy theory.
As long as Steam continues to let me revert, I'll continue to enjoy GTA5 without falling through the map and without caring if scripthookv will be updated. Same for gameconfig.xml and packfile etc, no need to update. Could I miss out on some mods or content that need updated versions. Of course, but it hasn't happened yet and I can easily go from updated to reverted with most mods intact.
My popcorn is ready for next update. Let the soap opera begin on all the forums.