Take-Two Just Took Down the Only Way to Play the Real Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

The timing here is almost comically bad for nostalgic gamers. Just as word was spreading about this incredible feat of browser-based gaming, the project vanished. Anyone visiting The DOS Zone's Vice City page now sees only a notice about the DMCA takedown and a screenshot of the threatening email from Take-Two's representatives.

Take-Two only sells the Definitive Edition, released originally as part of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, which many consider inferior due to missing music tracks from the original soundtrack. The browser version offered a way to experience the game as it was originally intended, complete with all the iconic songs like "I Ran (So Far Away)" by A Flock of Seagulls and "Video Killed the Radio Star" that are now absent from the official version.

When the game you're trying to preserve isn't even being sold anymore in its original form, you'd think companies might be a little more lenient. But Take-Two's approach to fan content remains aggressively protective, even for games over two decades old.

Take-Two's aggressive stance on fan projects isn't new. They've consistently shut down mods, remakes, and unofficial ports over the years. The company appears determined to control every aspect of how their games are experienced, even when those games are over two decades old and no longer available in their original form. Case in point: Take-Two previously sued developers behind Re3 and reVC, reverse-engineered versions of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City that ran on modern systems. They've shut down ambitious Vice City recreation projects and killed the OpenIV modding tool.

For now, anyone wanting to experience the original title will need to either purchase the modified Definitive Edition or hunt down increasingly rare and expensive original copies from key resellers. Even then, getting those old versions to run on modern systems often requires additional patches and modifications.

The irony here is almost painful: Take-Two could have embraced this technology itself, creating official browser-based versions of classic titles. Instead, they've chosen to protect decades-old copyrights that won't enter the public domain until 2097, which is probably when Grand Theft Auto VII will come out.

All jokes aside, it's unfortunate that these types of things tend to happen when it comes to Grand Theft Auto.

When fan-made Liberty City projects get shut down after six years of development, when browser ports requiring legal ownership get DMCA'd, when reverse-engineered code gets litigated into oblivion, what kind of message does that send?

Take-Two is well within its legal rights to do this. Nobody's arguing otherwise. But being legally correct doesn't make it any less frustrating for everyone who just wants to experience classic GTA the way they came out.