Luke Ross, the prolific VR modder, was recently involved in a DMCA takedown issued by CD Projekt for his paywalled Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod, which the studio claims breaks its terms of service. Now, Ross has removed access to all of his various VR mods in response.
Patreon immediately removed Ross’ Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod following the DMCA takedown earlier this week, seemingly running afoul of the game’s ‘Fan Guidelines’, which state that content created by the community should have “[n]o commercial usage.”
Like many of Ross’ VR mods, Cyberpunk 2077 was only available to active Patreon subscribers who pay $10 per month to not only support Ross’ ongoing work with his R.E.A.L. VR mod suite, but also to gain access to a number of VR mods for popular flatscreen games, including Elden Ring, Far Cry, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Ghostrunner.
In the wake of the Cyberpunk 2077 controversy, Ross has effectively pulled all VR mods from his Patreon, the reasons of which he details to his Patreon supporters (via Reddit) in a message titled “Under attack”.
First, a bit of backstory: the initial DMCA takedown issued by CD Projekt was solely due to Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod being paywalled, Ross says. While the studio later claimed it would allow the mod if it were offered for free, that was something Ross wasn’t (and still isn’t) willing to do.
In its wake, Ross says it’s sparked “rampant piracy of my software,” and what he calls a “domino effect” of other publishers following CD Projekt’s lead. In the following days, Ross received a similar DMCA takedown from 505 Games for its action platformer Ghostrunner, which led to his decision to remove the mods.
“No mention of any terms of service violation this time. Again Patreon automatically complied. I don’t blame them; DMCA law is carefully worded to give infinite power to big companies, who only need to write on a slip of paper that they “believe” their copyright has been infringed in order to nuke from the sky anything they don’t like—and to give infinite headaches to creators like me, who instead have the only recourse of going to court, sustaining huge costs to get through the legal process,” Ross tells subscribers.
Repeated claims by other developers could lead to account termination, Ross says, hence why he removed all mods and paused billing for one month, an ostensible bid to stem the permanent outflow of subscribers.
“I hope one month will be enough for the fog to clear up, and to understand what is going to happen to our collective attempt to make VR available for AAA games. To boldly go where no publisher wants to go (or to let us go) anymore,” Ross says, underlining that many developers refuse to develop their own VR support.
Still, Ross is prepared to close up shop entirely.
“Hopefully we’ll find a way together, in the next few weeks. But if we can’t, we’ll always have the memories of the wonderful times we spent in those beautiful virtual worlds.”
Notably, none of Ross’ VR mods via the R.E.A.L. VR mod suite contain game files. Instead, the software inserts custom rendering code directly into PC games to enable stereoscopic 3D, head-tracking, and OpenXR compatibility.
You can view the entire message on Reddit, courtesy user ‘Top_Team_3138’. We’ll be following further developments, so check back soon.
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