News: Why branded content and vehicles are gone, and more
In accordance with FiveM's Platform License Agreement, we have taken steps to ensure compliance by removing all branded content from our servers. Moving forward, we will refrain from adding any branded content (including intellectual property or trademarks from real-world brands/companies) unless we obtain the necessary licensing to do so.
Content will still be added but it will not include any real-world brands.
What this means for the future of the servers
While this change may affect players who enjoy real-world content and brands, our content workflows will remain unaffected. The server will continue to receive regular updates featuring custom vehicles (cars), pedestrians, and clothing, all designed to be "lore-friendly." In fact, lore-friendly content is often of higher quality, involving more than just the simple porting of vehicles from other games (which is where most vehicles come from).
Our previous infringing content, accumulated over the past four years, experienced numerous bugs and performance issues, leading to FPS drops, especially on lower-end systems. Despite two years of optimization efforts, the underlying issues persisted because we never had 3D modelling expertise on our team. We're viewing this as an opportunity to start fresh, rigorously vetting each new content addition to ensure a clean and issue-free experience, avoiding potential headaches in the future.
The content that is staying
Vehicles: All current lore-friendly and unbranded vehicles will be staying and will be added back throughout the next few weeks.
Peds: Most of the custom peds that we had were taken from other games and brands, such as Mario Kart and superhero models. However, we'll be reviewing this list when we have our house in order and things have started to calm down a bit, so please bare with us. Until then, all custom peds will be disabled.
Clothing: We've temporarily removed all clothing items so we can meet the deadline of being compliant, so most clothing items will be added back over the course of the next few weeks. Anything that was branded will not be added back, but we have lots of new clothing coming in the next couple of content updates.
There will be things that we have missed, so please be patient with us while we get everything sorted.
Common questions
Why did you do this?
Using infringing content is inherently wrong, and server developers (including us) assumed that it was acceptable because no action was taken against servers using such content. This "rule" has been a part of the platform since its early days, but enforcement was limited due to Cfx.re's resources at the time.
Capitalizing on the momentum from Rockstar Games' acquisition of Cfx.re and the newswire article on branded content, we see this as an opportunity to rectify our position and set a positive example for other servers facing similar challenges. We don't want to get taken to court and we don't want to have our server (and community) shut down. This is not negotiable.
Is this specific to RSM.GG or applicable to all servers?
Every server on the FiveM platform must adhere to the terms of the PLA, as failure to do so will result in shutdowns. This enforcement is platform-wide, and action is already being taken against non-compliant servers.
Why not just "de-badge" the vehicles?
Two primary reasons:
- We're not 3D modellers, and we can't hire anyone to go through hundreds of vehicles to remove badges. That's a lot of manual work and we don't have the budget anyway.
- It won't matter in the end, as it's not just about trademarks and logos - the models and designs of the vehicles are also the property of manufacturers and we will still be at risk of legal action.
This is one of the first steps of moving forward as the platform matures and we're excited to see what the future holds.
The news
We don't often talk about improvements to our team and workflow, but we feel that this is necessary :)
New developers
We've got two new developers on the team to help out with the project, and this means that updates will be more often and have more of a positive impact on your gameplay experiences on our servers!
In the next few updates you will see new features, activities and last but not least, a lot of new content, vehicle liveries and clothing!
Looking back at the last update of 2023
Our last update was arguably one of the largest of 2023, and while a lot of work has gone into it, we still have a lot more to do. We have quite a large backlog of things to complete but we're sure that the wait will be worth it. We're constantly working to improve our servers and community, and this will be demonstrated over the next few updates.
Thank you for understanding and being with us on this journey, and a huge thank you to the supporters that have been helping us get to this point. Without you, we will not be able to sustainably maintain this project!
Good luck and have fun out there :)