Videogame cheating is a widespread issue worldwide, more so with highly popular online franchises lilke Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. Some people even attempt to make a money out of creating cheat codes and selling them out in the internet to gain a profit, which might prompt action by the big companies to extend the hammer of the law, and this was such the case for Activision.

Activision started a lawsuit in 2022 within the US district of California against the videogame cheats company known as EngineOwning, who are some of the biggest names when it comes to online cheating, with them selling cheats for franchises like Call of Duty, Counter Strike and Battlefield, to name a few.

While the court ruling against EngineOwning reached a 3 million payment for Activision from them back in February 2023 according to IGN, EO seems to have continued working on cheat codes for Activision's, at the time, new game of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3". This prompted Activision to continue with the lawsuit and reaching the ruling stated today.

This brings us to May 29th, 2024, and a full resolution from the court case is now publicly available, with the resolution noting that Activision was the winning party for the lawsuit, and EngineOwning will be paying the sum of 14.465 million USD to Activision after several violations of the US' DMCA, with Activision claiming a minimum of $200 USD per each violation, and the number of violations piling up to around 72k in the United States only. EngineOwning was also ordered to turn over their website to Activision according to the court's ruling in the case, as well as to stop developing and distributing/selling cheat codes.

This isn't the first time a gaming company has gone after cheat code creators, as Bungie has also taken action in court against Destiny 2's cheaters, winning in a settlement of 13 million USD.

Source
Court ruling document

 

[Mama Looigi]

from a tf2 player:
fuck cheat makers
get a real job and use your talent on something actually good for the world

 

[AdenTheThird]

Hip hip hooray! I don't like money going towards big corporations, but I don't like cheaters more.

 

[Xzi]

Hip hip hooray! I don't like money going towards big corporations, but I don't like cheaters more.

I concur. Activision sucks and Call of Duty is one of the worst franchises in history in terms of churning out low-effort yearly releases, but these cheats were affecting other games and franchises too. So ultimately this is a net positive.

 

[Jayinem]

If it's online I agree shouldn't be cheats

But offline games no one on gbatemp of all places should applaud Activision. There's been cheat codes for offline games since NES and it was never a problem.

 

[RyanTheArchivist]

Hip hip hooray! I don't like money going towards big corporations, but I don't like cheaters more.

There was some country the other day that literally created criminal charges you can get for cheating in games.

 

[Xzi]

There was some country the other day that literally created criminal charges you can get for cheating in games.

It's been criminal to get caught with cheats in Japan for quite some time, IIRC.

 

[Kioku]

Too bad they'll inevitably do it again.

Post automatically merged: May 30, 2024

If it's online I agree shouldn't be cheats

But offline games no one on gbatemp of all places should applaud Activision. There's been cheat codes for offline games since NES and it was never a problem.

You missed the point, entirely.

 

[Viri]

Good.

 

[KingVamp]

Well, selling cheats is already dubious, but if they were focused on online games, then this does seem like a good thing. If it was for cheats in general, that would be worrisome.

 

[Jayinem]

Too bad they'll inevitably do it again.

Post automatically merged: May 30, 2024

You missed the point, entirely.

The first post does say it's online, but I said only offline should not be any lawsuit. What did I miss?

 

[Pismire]

from a tf2 player:
fuck cheat makers
get a real job and use your talent on something actually good for the world

I'd be willing to argue that making cheats is very like a real job. It takes a pretty specific skillset that's not really taught. Involves many, many, more hours than one would believe. There's all kinds of cheaters I've met along the ways.

Sure, most of them are just asshats that want to ruin other people's fun, but there's a fair share that just want to have a fun time and don't overly rage cheat. I've met just a couple even that due to arbitrary conditions would never be able to perform in shooters but just want to have some console-like aim assist on to enjoy the game like others.

I think there's some gray area here and punishing cheaters with laws (like Japan or Korea) is just foolish, but what do I know.. I'm just some random internet stranger.

 

[ZeroT21]

I'd be willing to argue that making cheats is very like a real job. It takes a pretty specific skillset that's not really taught. Involves many, many, more hours than one would believe. There's all kinds of cheaters I've met along the ways.

Sure, most of them are just asshats that want to ruin other people's fun, but there's a fair share that just want to have a fun time and don't overly rage cheat. I've met just a couple even that due to arbitrary conditions would never be able to perform in shooters but just want to have some console-like aim assist on to enjoy the game like others.

I think there's some gray area here and punishing cheaters with laws (like Japan or Korea) is just foolish, but what do I know.. I'm just some random internet stranger.

That's basically it, people are willing to pay for cheats, just as if they're mods. The motivation behind it are varied

 

[DinohScene]

Remember kids, cheating in videogames gets you nowhere.

 

[mitcha]

there was a time cheat where incorporated in game ( nes, arcade...) by developers just to make the game less hard, fun.
also there was no save games at the time.

 

[yoyoyo69]

I hate Cheaters, always have.

But the numbers, it's Unreal how biased the system is.


Big corpo screws hundreds of millions? They have to commit some serious bad acts, before they're punished the majority of the time, and leniency is always shown. Those affected are often lucky to receive pennies.


Hurt big corpos exaggerated, expected earnings and you're life is as good as over.

 

[ZeroFX]

That sucks, if you use cheats in mp you're a loser, that's it, if you develop them you're just a reverse engineer probably sinking a lot of time on it and might as well sell it, if there are losers who buy it at least you earn some money. But now you're a competition against the game developers because they also sell cheats most of the time through loot boxes, gacha, and other forms of pay to win. That said I'm not in the side of either, there are groups of cheat makers who are shady beyond cheat making.

 

[duwen]

Hate to see Activision win anything, but paying for cheats is on par with paying for piracy.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

If it's cheats for online multiplayer? Yeah, no, fuck that shit.

If it's cheats for strictly singleplayer, like WeMods or (most) Cheat Engine tables? That should be fair game, as it doesn't impact anyone other than the user themselves.

 

[auntnadia]

Finally a lawsuit from a games company that I can get behind. This is nothing like piracy, which might arguably take away a minuscule amount of profit from a behemoth corporation. This is a few people ruining everyone else’s enjoyment of a game they bought to relax with in their downtime and these people are in effect taking revenue away from the industry via people who won’t pay for online subscription, because online gaming is full of cheating.