Hi all,
In light of today’s presentation on cheating in games, I thought it might be interesting to share this news on one of the most prominent Call of Duty cheat developers announcing shutdown of its operations in 30 days. The cheat developer, Phantom Overlay, claims that this is not an exit scam but does not explain why they are suddenly leaving the scene.
This is another step forward for Activision, who has been consistently cracking down on cheating in its games for years. Last year, Activision banned 27, 000 cheaters from several of its Call of Duty games and its anti-cheat team announced plans to use machine learning to improve detection and removal of cheaters. Also in early 2024, another Call of Duty cheat provider called Interwebz ceased operations after receiving a legal notice from an unnamed party suspected to be Activision. Other similar cheat providers were sued and ordered to pay $3M in damages to Activision in a 2023 lawsuit.
Activision’s continuous anti-cheat efforts bring some interesting questions to mind, especially considering our discussion in class on whether cheating in games should be criminalized. Activision has clearly spent enormous amounts of time and money to protect the integrity of its games and its revenue. However, if the government were to criminalize cheating in video games, these costs would shift to public agencies, and therefore, taxpayers.
Are there any justifications for using public resources to do what gaming companies should already have an incentive to do? More importantly, would criminal punishment be more effective than internal bans and improved detection systems from the developer themselves? Are there any unique sociocultural factors that led to criminalization in the countries that do impose criminal punishment for cheating in games?
What are your thoughts on these issues?
Sources:
https://gamerant.com/call-of-duty-cheat-provider-interwebz-shut-down/
Check out theVideos of Interest to Law 423 on YouTube 
Communications Law
Join the Community!
Hi Clara,
Great post!
My personal take on this is that cheating in video games should not be criminalized. I am not versed in the case law here, but I feel like a person writing a code / script in a game to gain a competitive advantage is not of a kind of actions that are normally criminalized. While one may argue that a developers profits may decline if a games base becomes disillusioned by cheaters, I would argue that such instances of cheating more-so reflect a developers failure to detect and patch the exploits that such cheaters use. Finally, I feel like criminalising cheating is a huge unnecessary drain on resources. The tools to cheat are readily accessible and are all legal to possess. Banning the use of the a computer and computer programs / codes in a specific way seems excessive.
There are interesting points here, but also some misleading assumptions and premises.
If you actually play Call of Duty regularly, you know the game has been destroyed by cheaters. It is simply not playable anymore. This has been a problem since several years ago, one that has become progressively worse.
The reason seems obvious: a significant portion (although it is a minority) of the player base uses PC computers, and many of them use cheat software to take advantage of the majority (who are console players, who can’t run such software). The game insists on PC and console ‘crossplay,’ so it encourages and allows PC players to cheat at the expense of consolers.
Does anyone really believe such a large and tech-savvy company can’t detect cheat software, program around it, or even simply require crossplay to be disabled? This company says a lot about making Anti-cheat efforts, but cheating only increases. The only logical conclusion is this is merely lip service from a company too greedy to regulate a minority of its player base that is frankly on the verge of killing their golden goose.
The only reasonable remedy seems to be class action suits for all those who paid for games services. That seems a stretch, however, since there is no guarantee of either winning nor fun in return for purchases.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your comment! I think you raise really good points on how excessive this would be for the government to criminalize regarding resource drain. Further, we can consider whether there would be a valid basis under federalism for the federal government to do so with their criminal law power, or for the provincial government to create regulatory offenses on this matter. As you noted, this is not the typical act that the government normally regulates and the tools are accessible and legal, so the issue definitely seems to reflect a failure on the part of developers to detect and prevent cheating.