Activision wins big against Call of Duty cheat maker

After two long years, Activision has finally managed to win a court case against cheat maker EngineOwning UG, Garnatz Enterprise Ltd, and 11 individuals. A federal court in California has now held the defendants liable and instructed them to pay $14.4 million in statutory damages alongside $292,912 in attorneys’ fees.

Both EngineOwning and Garnatz Enterprise are shell companies that were developing cheats for Call of Duty games that provide unfair advantages to users inside the game by altering game files and memory. EngineOwning was one of those subscription-based cheats that required monthly payment.

The prices were reported to be anywhere around €4.49 for three-day access to €39.95 for 90 days of access. These cheats provide users with aim bots, wall hacks, triggerbots and other cheats that are prohibited by Activision.

Activision also listed the company to create and maintain their own anti-cheat to combat the cheaters. The judge issued a permanent injunction against the cheat seller’s website. The official post by EngineOwning claims that the individuals named in the lawsuit have been inactive for years and the developments have been done by another team.

While the cheats are disabled, for now, they still aim to operate once it is updated and has released a new post informing users about backup websites. “Activision is trying to claim our engineowning.to domain. We have created backup domains and kindly ask you to bookmark them,” the post wrote.

Cheaters plaguing every online game

Cheaters are not something new in video games, and player complaints regarding games plagued with cheaters have been increasing each month. Companies are now playing cat and mouse with cheat makers or either banning the users or lobbying them together after blacklisting.

These lawsuits come as one of the effective ways to stop cheat makers from ruining their experience because for big companies like Activision, losing these cases will mean nothing but $14 million is a huge sum to pay for even a group of individuals.

Other companies like Bungie have also been doing the same and going after the cheat maker for a permanent solution. The developers know that players will cheat unless the cheat maker is taken down to prevent further updates.