Just days after shutting down popular Grand Theft Auto V modding tool OpenIV , publisher Take-Two Interactive has forced three major GTA Online hacking tools to go offline.

Lexicon, Force Hax, and Menyoo were all subscription-based paid hacking tools that let GTA Online players spawn infinite piles of cash, teleport other players to arbitrary locations, become invulnerable, or walk through walls while playing with other people. Over the weekend, though, the websites for all three programs were replaced with a simple message:

After discussions with Take-Two Interactive, effective immediately we are ceasing all maintenance, development and distribution of [our] cheat menu services. We will be donating our proceeds to a charity designated by Take-Two. We apologize for any and all problems [our program] has caused to the Grand Theft Auto Online community.

GTA Online has faced major problems with cheaters since the mode launched on Windows in 2015. Almost immediately, players began complaining that the game's online infrastructure, which uses a simple P2P mesh rather than centralized servers, makes it very difficult to cut off hacking tools on a technical level.

While Rockstar said in 2015 that "we believe we are making significant progress on this [cheating] issue and we will continue to work aggressively to stop these griefers in their tracks as best we can," hacking tools like the ones above have continued to work around Rockstar's modified detection tools. In response, Rockstar and Take Two have taken more of a bottom-up approach to protect the online gameplay experience, removing ill-gotten cash from accounts in a massive October sweep. The publisher also tightened its banning and suspension policy for the game alongside that purge, now issuing permanent bans after only two infractions.

The apparent legal threats that took down these paid hacking tools can be seen as a similar method to fix the game's cheating problem through non-technial means. And while keeping hackers out is important to the interests of fair play, GTA Online's use of microtransactions means hacks that can generate infinite in-game money impact a market that's reportedly worth half a billion dollars to Take Two.

Despite the action against online cheat tools, Rockstar said in 2015 that it had no interest in punishing players for single-player modding. The recent takedown of single-player-focused modding tool OpenIV, the company said, was something of an edge case, coming because the tool "enables recent malicious mods that allow harassment of players and interfere with the GTA Online experience for everybody."

While Rockstar says it is "working to figure out how we can continue to support the creative community without negatively impacting our players," that explanation hasn't stopped Grand Theft Auto V from receiving tens of thousands of negative reviews on Steam in recent days, nor stopped over 50,000 people from signing an online petition to save the modding tool.