Two Call Of Duty Cheat Makers Ordered To Pay $3 Million To Activision

Unauthorized cheat tools are nothing new in PC gaming, but there's an increasing crackdown on those who make and distribute them. Call of Duty cheats seller EngineOwning is the latest to be hit with a big judgment, with two developers from the group recently ordered to pay $3 million for creating cheating software.

The judgment, which was first covered by Axios, notes that the cheats were used for multiple Call of Duty games, including Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, Vanguard, all of the Black Ops games, Warzone, and Warzone 2. It also states that EngineOwning created similar software for Overwatch, another Activision-published game.

As online multiplayer games have continued to grow in recent years, major publishers have become bolder in their pursuit of cheat sellers, especially Activision, Destiny 2 developer Bungie, and Valorant developer Riot Games. Many of these suits cite the DMCA as a key piece of their case against the cheat makers. Bungie is currently embroiled in several legal cases against cheat-sellers, recently notching a $4.3 million judgment against well-known cheat purveyor AimJunkies in arbitration. Bungie is also suing a Destiny YouTuber who is accused of impersonating the company in order to send DMCA strikes to fellow content creators. PUBG Mobile cheat makers faced a $10 million judgment early last year after a victory for Tencent.