Rockstar Hits Original GTA Developer With Copyright Strike for Sharing Early Game Footage
Grand Theft Auto creator Mike Daley has received a copyright infringement warning for his work.
Daley was one of the founders of DMA Design, which later became Rockstar North, and was responsible for the original Grand Theft Auto. However, after he posted a video of the prototype and old design documents on his social media, Rockstar issued numerous copyright infringement warnings to the creator.
“I can see Rockstar going into full f********s mode again and putting out copyright infringement warnings on every GTA video they find, including my prototype video included,” he said. Via Twitter“So they are now trying to block the release of all works related to the game, as well as old development footage.”
We can see Rockstar going into full fucker mode again, putting out copyright strikes on every GTA video they find. This includes my prototype video. So they try to block the release of any work on the game and all old development footage.
— Mike Daley™ 🏴🇺🇦💙 (@mdf200) August 21, 2022
Two videos on Dailly’s YouTube account were affected. Both show prototype his renderings from an early graphics engine that Daily himself developed in his early 90s. One is a rotating isometric prototype and the other represents the top-down style the franchise is famous for.
Daley also removed a link to a 25-year-old GTA2 design document posted on Twitter.
He said PC gamer The reason for the deletion is that I posted the development video without permission.
“Now I’ve removed all the GTA dev stuff,” he said. Via Twitter“Only direct examples of my own work remain. It was never used in GTA, but is an ‘inspired’ part of its evolution.”
Daly also hinted at another Grand Theft Auto design document that “never sees the light of day.”
there are 10 more pages #GTA A design document that will never see the light of day again…. pic.twitter.com/6D0x8Cm4Nn
— Mike Daley™ 🏴🇺🇦💙 (@mdf200) August 21, 2022
The developer also designed Lemmings and worked for several years at YoYoGames’ popular game design software, GameMaker: Studio. He regularly posts about game design concepts on his social media, offering help and advice to those looking to follow in his footsteps.
Given Daly’s ongoing commitment to game development, it’s easy to understand why he’s unhappy with Rockstar’s actions. As the original Grand Theft Auto developer, there is a certain value in passing on his knowledge and expertise to the next generation of developers.
IGN has reached out to Rockstar for comment and will update the story with a response.
Plus, the original Grand Theft Auto and GTA2 aren’t available for purchase anywhere, so it’s hard to see what impact such document sharing would have on your business. Because it was ten years ago.
Still, The Daily has since taken steps to remove the offending content…and it doesn’t seem like we’ll be getting any further peek into GTA’s history…at least for now.
Want to know more about Grand Theft Auto? Let’s take a look at what we know about GTA VI so far and all the upcoming Take-Two games.
Ryan Leston is IGN’s entertainment journalist and film critic.you can follow him twitter.
