No one has been banned for using single-player modifications
Grand Theft Auto 5 developer Rockstar has clarified its position on mods to the community following several reports of people being banned for them. As it turns out, Rockstar's mod policy hasn't changed since Grand Theft Auto 4. Single-player mods are still totally acceptable to the developer, but those affecting the game's balance in multiplayer are a different story.
GTA5's gravity gun mod is a riot.
"No one has been banned for using single-player modifications, and you should not worry about being banned or being relegated to the cheater pool just for using single-player PC mods," Rockstar stated in a recent Q&A post.
"Our primary focus is on protecting GTA Online against modifications that could give players an unfair advantage, disrupt gameplay, or cause griefing. It also bears mentioning that because game mods are by definition unauthorised, they may be broken by technical updates, cause instability, or affect your game in other unforeseen ways."
Gamespot recently reported that the latest GTA5 update nulled a lot of mods, leading to speculation that the developer wasn't on board with users tinkering with its content. That's not the case, however. "Recent updates to GTA5 PC had an unintended effect of making unplayable certain single-player modifications," Rockstar explained. "This was not intentional."
"We have always appreciated the creative efforts of the PC modding community and we still fondly remember the awesome zombie invasion mod and original GTA map mod for GTA4 PC among many other classics," the developer stated. "To be clear, the modding policy in our license has not changed and is the same as for GTA4."
Rockstar also took this opportunity to address some features that will and won't be coming to consoles. The Rockstar Editor, for example, which allows players to create their own movies with GTA assets, will be coming to PS4 and Xbox One this summer. It won't arrive on last-gen platforms, however.
Unfortunately, the self-curated radio station from the PC version won't make the conversion to consoles. "The GTA5 PC Self Radio experience that plays your personally curated playlist of mp3s in the game as a fully featured and properly integrated radio station just wouldn't technically be possible on the consoles as it requires more than the consoles allow at this time," the developer explained.
