Rockstar Games and its publisher, Take-Two Interactive, have apparently shut down Lil Durk’s well-known Trenches Grand Theft Auto V roleplaying server.
PCGamesN claims that the two parties destroyed Durk’s RP while enforcing their ban on the use of cryptocurrency and NFTs in video games.
Last week, Rockstar Games said in a statement that it will pursue anyone who misappropriated its trademarks, IP, real-world brands, characters, and music, including those who sold “loot boxes” for real money or the equivalent in-game cash.
Although it was widely believed that roleplaying servers were safe, Lil Durk’s Trenches was not one of them.
In a statement, the Trenches team explained that Rockstar Games had shut them down and that the server suspension, which they believe is temporary, started on Sunday (November 20) at midnight ET.
“We’ve been asked to cease all operations of Trenches,” the company wrote. “We have no choice but to comply with their demands as we intend to do right by Take-Two and Rockstar. We will be working with them to find an amicable solution to this problem.”
Grand Theft Auto V’s Durk’s Trenches server was live in August, and the gameplay clip quickly gained popularity because the city resembled Southside Chicago and had a mural of the deceased OTF rapper King Von, who was assassinated in November 2020.
There is no information on whether another rapper named Tee Grizzley will also have his successful roleplaying site, Grizzley World, shut down.
Durkin told GQ last year how the COVID-19 outbreak ignited his passion for gaming and how he discovered how to make money from the lucrative hobby.
“I started playing “Call of Duty” during quarantine and got addicted to it,” he said. “I was never playing at all, but now I know how to Livestream on Twitch and all the good stuff.” It’s already big, but [gaming] gonna be bigger than sports in a minute.
“When I started my gaming project with Crown So Heavy and [Lil] Bibby, they taught me how to play Call of Duty.” They started coming up with ideas like, ‘You could get paid from it, you could do this, you could live stream.” “And I started getting into it more.”
