With no apparent sense of irony, Rockstar said in a Friday blog post announcing the acquisition that it has “watched with excitement as Rockstar’s creative community have found new ways to expand the possibilities of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, particularly through the creation of dedicated roleplay servers.”
“Our policy on such violations of our terms of service are clear, and the individuals involved in its creation have had their Social Club accounts suspended,” the company said at the time.
To avoid, er, misunderstandings like that in the future, Rockstar notes that it has “recently expanded our policy on mods to officially include those made by the roleplay creative community.”
That policy, as of a June update, says that Rockstar will focus its “legal enforcement” only on roleplaying servers that “[make] new games, stories, missions, or maps” or “[interfere] with our official multiplayer or online services,” among some other restrictions.
Despite longstanding questions from Rockstar and others about the legality of FiveM’s alternative online playspace, the mod and its community have continued to operate and thrive over the years, reaching a reported 250,000 concurrent players across the server platform in 2021.
While the reason for Rockstar’s abrupt turnaround on this is unclear, it’s nice to see the company officially embracing an “unofficial” play method that has become increasingly popular with the community.