Rockstar Games accidentally sells cracked versions of Midnight Club 2 and other games on Steam

Rockstar Games recently found itself in hot water when it accidentally sold cracked versions of some really popular titles, including Midnight Club 2, Max Payne 2, and Manhunt, on Steam. Cracks have always been popular among gamers because they offer a way to get top-rated titles at no cost. However, there are several problems with them.

In certain cases, cracks contain files that can potentially harm the system they're downloaded on. Having said that, the fact that Rockstar Games was selling cracked copies on Steam was discovered by data miners.

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Old Rockstar Games titles tend to be broken after cracked copies are sold on Steam

As posted on Twitter by Silent, who is an avid modder and game developer, the first instance of these cracked versions was spotted in Midnight Club 2. In the post, it was seen that the racing game contained a file belonging to a group called Razor1911. Although the group has since disbanded, it was really popular back in the day for releasing cracks.

Similar instances were spotted in the Steam versions of Manhunt. As for Max Payne 2, files belonging to Myth were found, but they were unused. Although Rockstar Games is yet to comment on this matter, there are a few problems associated with this incident. First of all, players have had to pay for games that could otherwise have been obtained for free.

Secondly, when the Steam DRM activates, it could lead to several bugs and crashes in these games. While there are a few individuals who've associated this issue with the titles being too old, there are others who believe that the cracks are the reason these games are experiencing crashes.

In the absence of a statement from Rockstar Games, players have come to the conclusion that the developer has lost the source code along with the official files of these games. They believe this is the reason why they've resorted to selling cracked copies on Steam.

Either way, this does put Rockstar Games in a very weird position because no game developer wants to associate themselves with piracy. In fact, developers have a strict policy against piracy.

If Rockstar Games chooses to remain silent on the matter, it's bound to open a new can of worms regarding its stance on piracy. To make matters worse, the developer hasn't released any updates to fix the issue either.

It will be interesting to see how Rockstar Games responds to this issue. Till then, players are advised to stay away from cracked copies of any game because it may harm their systems and cause them to lose data.