Mod-Me-Do: Dying Light Mod Block & Takedowns Tackled

The Dying Light [official site] mod unpleasantness of the past week has been cleared up, and was indeed double whammy of overzealous protection. Developers Techland are doing something about the cheat protection that also blocked legitimate mods, while the Entertainment Software Assocation have nonapologised for copyright takedown notices issued in its name against sites hosting mod downloads. Huzzah! They don't hate mods, they simply didn't think things through.

Technland have have said that blocking mods was an unintended side effect of attempts to stop cheating in Dying Light's PvP mode 'Be the Zombie'. Yesterday's statement explains:

"Creating obstacles for modders has never been our intention, and we are sorry for the inconvenience. We are now working on a quick patch that will re-enable common tweaks while stopping cheating in the game's multiplayer mode.

"At Techland, we have always supported the mod community, and loved seeing how our own game can be changed by the players. A big part of the original Dead Island's success was the passion and creativity of mod-makers from our community. We want the same for Dying Light. For quite some time, we have been working, and still are, on giving modders all the power we can. We will keep you updated!"

That's that soon-to-be-cleared-up, then. Meanwhile, the ESA, an industry body which Dying Light publisher Warner Bros. is a member of, have said the takedowns were a mistake but carefully avoid apologising.

"ESA was notified this morning that potentially erroneous DMCA notices had been transmitted by one of its vendors," they told Ars Technica yesterday, several days after modders had their files pulled by hosts who received takedown notices. "Upon further review, it was determined that the notices should not have been sent and retractions were issued immediately. We regret any inconvenience and have taken steps to avoid similar situations in the future."

Maybe, one day, they'll reach a point where folks don't blindly issue takedowns against people who like games enough to make mods for free (or employ unthinking companies to do the dirty work) then rectify their mistakes afterwards. A similar situation happened with wonderful Dark Souls tool DSfix last year, when a company employed by publishers Bandai Namco to police pirates got a bit carried away with takedown notices.