Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto has been a mainstay of the video game landscape nearly since its inception. The series started off in the 90s, and the original looked and played very differently compared to the more recent entries in the franchise. The first game had a top-down perspective, and the world was very limited by today’s standards. Most of the people that worked on the original game have since moved on to other things, but some of them still have not only the memories of working on the franchise but historically valuable prototype-stage data on the development of the original GTA.

Mike Dailly is one such developer, he recently uploaded a few videos showing prototype gameplay of the very first GTA game. He was the founder of DMA Designs, now known as Rockstar North, and was shocked to learn that his video had been taken down by a copyright strike by Rockstar. Dailly showed his frustration on Twitter, telling fans that the GTA developer is taking down any and all development footage that he published.

For those asking – yes, I’ve now removed all GTA dev stuff. Only direct examples of my own work are left – work that was never used in GTA, but “inspired” parts of it’s evolution.

You can thank Rocksuck.

— Mike Dailly™ ?????????? (@mdf200) August 21, 2022

The GTA Prototype videos are not alone, Rockstar has been taking down videos of fan projects in the past, along with anything tied to the development of any game in the series. While taking down cheating websites makes complete sense, punishing fans for liking the franchise does not.

Rockstar is currently hard at work on Grant Theft Auto 6, and some details about the game have been leaked recently. The game is likely going to come out at the end of 2023 or early 2024.