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/
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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.