Rockstar Games is presumably shuttingdown the fan-made Bully Online expansion mod, and as you’d expect fans are ticked off.
While Rockstar is primarily known for Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption its IPs go much further than Vice City and the Wild West.
Bully is just one example of that and it’s been screaming for a remaster/remake for years now, yet its developer has seemingly forgotten it exists.
It was recently reminded though when fans created Bully Online, an exceptional mod for the game that’d let you head to school with your friends and cause mischief as a team rather than by yourself.
The mod looked like good fun, but it was never going to last forever.
This week the mod’s creators shared a message via their Discord channel, saying Bully Online will be shut down in 24 hours, so it’ll be offline sometime later today.
One of its creators, Swegta, will soon be publishing a video on their YouTube channel to explain the situation though fans believe they already know what happened.
Many hold Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive accountable, as while mods have been generally accepted for Rockstar’s games the companies have still been known to take some offline through legal threats.
It’s not surprising that Bully Online found itself in the company’s sights either as it wasn’t a free mod you could download from Nexus or somewhere else, users had to bypass a paywall to get access.
We don’t know for certain but most fans believe Rockstar was unhappy that the mod team was profiting from its game, and asked the Bully Online team to take it down before legal action followed.
Despite Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive being well within its rights to do this the alleged decision has still been met with criticism online.
After all, Bully isn’t exactly one of Rockstar’s heavy-hitters. It’s nowhere near as active as current titles like Grand Theft Auto V. One fan’s response to the takedown read: “What’s their problem? It’s a dead IP, fans keep it alive. It’s a free ad for the game basically.”
While I don’t have a problem with Rockstar Games taking Bully Online down, it does feel like the gaming industry currently has a gatekeeping problem.
So many classic and beloved games are being left out to dry when they could easily find new audiences through re-releases or remasters, Bully included.
Bully Online will disappear later today, though hopefully its mere existence has shown Rockstar Games that we want to see this series return.
