Source: Chesnot / Getty
One company is learning that cheating in Call of Duty will probably cost a lot of money.
Spotted on The Verge, Activision Publishing, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, slapped EngineOwning, a company best known for advertising cheats for Call of Duty, as well as other online shooters. The video game company also wants to shut down any software that allows players to cheat in games published by Activision.
“By this lawsuit, Activision seeks to put a stop to unlawful conduct by an organization that is distributing and selling for profit numerous malicious software products designed to enable members of the public to gain unfair competitive advantages (i.e., to cheat) in the COD Games,” Activision states in its lawsuit.” These ongoing activities damage Activision’s games, its overall business, and the experience of the COD player community.”
The lawsuit further states, “the Cheating Software enables players to manipulate the COD Games to their personal advantage, such as by automatically aiming weapons, revealing the locations of opponents, and allowing the player to see information that is not normally available to players because it would give them an unfair advantage within the game.” The company says it believes the defendants “have been fully aware that their conduct violates Activision’s rights but nevertheless have brazenly continued their activities.”
Activision is also coming after individuals referred to as “Does” in the lawsuit stating it believes some of them are affiliated with EngineOwning. Activision admits “the true names and capacities, whether individual, corporate, associate, or otherwise, of the Doe defendants are unknown to Activision.
Especially in the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone, online cheating has been a focal point of Activision. It recently launched Ricochet, the anti-cheating system Activision proudly announced led to the banning of 48,000 “cheater accounts.” Per the lawsuit, Activision says it was “able to identify and ban hundreds of thousands of accounts using cheating software in the COD Games in just over the past year.”
While Activision Publishing is suing EgineOwning, Activision Blizzard has its problems to worry about itself. The studio is currently dealing with a scandal after California sued the company for fostering a toxic work environment that allowed “constant sexual harassment” and “gender-based discrimination” to happen. Some workers are currently on the third week of a strike that began after Activision surprisingly laid off QA workers from Raven Software, best known for its work on Call of Duty games.
The drama is still ongoing.
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Photo: Chesnot / Getty
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