Thread by @TexFunz2

A report detailing the story behind the scenes of FiveM and Rockstar Games' acquisition has been released.

Check it out here:

This thread will highlight a list of issues affecting the FiveM/Cfx.re platform, assuming you’re familiar with its history.fivem.team

Before Rockstar’s acquisition, a group known as the Groot Gang dreamed of taking over FiveM and removing NTA.

Within the first week of the acquisition, their dream became reality.

They suspended and later removed NTAuthority, the founder of FiveM.

Meanwhile, with Ethan Hirsch’s help, the Groot Gang secured senior positions while core developers were pushed aside.

NTA is a walking Wikipedia and Stack Overflow answer sheet for FiveM. Their removal marks the first red flag in FiveM decline.

The core developers, second to NTA in FiveM experience, ended up either leaving or their contracts weren't renewed.

Hirsch, influenced by the group of opportunists, would end up becoming negligent toward the project.

The report provides extensive detail on both his and Groot's management issues, but I’ll briefly go over some of them.

PLA & TOS Favoritism

Instead of fairly enforcing the entire platform, Hirsch & Groot selectively attacked servers and made them comply within a much smaller timespan.

This is what happened with the owner of the RSM project.

RSM was the first "mainstream" server to comply with the new platform license agreement, expecting that all servers would be enforced simultaneously.

What happened instead was that RSM became a punching bag for freeroam players, while some servers received special immunity.

NoPixel & Complexo are examples. Despite the PLA prohibiting debadged vehicles, they still used them.

Hirsch would be more lenient on servers like NoPixel & Complexo, while being more strict on other servers such as RSM. He would advertise the former using Rockstar’s resources.

Management Issues

Hirsch promoted Groot to Senior R* Director despite his:
- Lack of any involvement in the community
- Lack of internal transparency
- Lack of understanding of the project
- Indifference to critical exploits, especially RCEs
- Inefficient task management

As such, FiveM's progress took a hit from major PR setbacks, eroding years of community trust.

Meanwhile, Groot kept inserting himself into R* dev meetings to derail discussions with off-topic questions.

Groot's negligence, backed by Hirsch, allowed asset escrow abuse, scams, IP rights violations, favoritism, fake players, and fraudulent boosts to run rampant, damaging Rockstar Games reputation.

The Hire of alt:V

Tuxick, the leader, ChatGPT'ed his way into becoming a Rockstar Games employee.

The alt:V team would go on to disregard communication, push unapproved changes, and impose their own methods without any explanation.

They repeatedly introduced regressions, breaking existing functionality with every change. Copying from their previous project, they modified stable code unnecessarily and failed to test if their changes even compiled.

Their "refactors" only created new issues for server owners.

In turn, Ethan Hirsch damaged Rockstar’s reputation, wasted company resources paying an incompetent management and failed projects, and blocked the core team from making progress. Most baffling of all was hiring the alt:V team.

Why? Their prior project was basically a copy-paste of FiveM. During their Rockstar interviews, they continued copying code, violating Rockstar’s IP.

Those alt:V members were also directly responsible for the December 2023 public leak of GTA V’s source code. Proof in the report.

They basically pulled off a Grand Theft Auto on Rockstar Games themselves, with Ethan Hirsch and the Groot Gang as the heist contacts.

You may even say this is bigger than the Big Score from GTA V’s story.

Once the alt:V team was hired, internal information started leaking. Rockstar’s plan to integrate Battleye was leaked around April/May 2024, months before release. The exact launch date leaked a week in advance. Details about the GTA V Gen9 update also surfaced.

Later, it was confirmed that alt:V members were behind the leaks. It’s presumed that Ethan Hirsch kept this information to himself and never reported it to Rockstar’s higher-ups.

Hirsch’s dream project, ROME, supposedly meant to replace FiveM, is led by ex-GTA:MP team members.

They prioritized fake PR over actual progress, attempting to create a GTA MP mod 3 times, only to abandon each attempt. ROME, a R* product driven by Hirsch, is their 4th attempt.

Current state of FiveM

FiveM is in its worst technical state ever—critical exploits, bug reports, and feature requests are ignored. No new features, no AC improvements, constant CNL outages, and the most broken title update support in its history.

The ctrl:V members pushed to close off RedM’s source, claiming it would "accelerate" development. Yet, NTA demonstrated transparency and progress without source code access, and Disquse, a core dev, made significant RedM advancements without going the close-source route.

In an effort to improve RedM, Disquse created an official native reference and documentation website. However, these initiatives were never integrated into RedM.

Disquse presented a plan to update RedM’s natives with community input, a plan that management initially approved.

It ended up being cancelled at the last minute, despite Hirsch being fully aware and regularly updated. He could have consulted Rockstar departments on the plan beforehand instead of letting contractors and employees waste weeks of effort only to cancel at the end.

Aside from NTA, one core developer worth highlighting is Disquse, the only dev who actively worked on RedM. After his removal, RedM became as dead as RDO itself. As ironic as that may sound.

ROME seems to be Hirsch’s attempt to boost his portfolio via monopolization. Rather than improving an established system, he’s investing in a derivative platform instead.

Development could've been faster with FiveM’s foundation, but Hirsch insisted on a new platform from scratch

None of the original core members regret their decision to leave the project. It was a terrible environment that drained everyone’s mental health. They only regretted not stopping NTA from selling.

Finally, it's safe to say FiveM & RedM are essentially dead.