Destiny 2 Devs Battle Cheaters; Big Money on the Table
Bungie is not forgiving cheat sellers. This time, the U.S. developers are demanding multimillion-dollar damages from the Romanian owner of a website where, until recently, cheats for Destiny 2 could be purchased.
In accordance with earlier announcements, Bungie - studio known for such series as Halo or Destiny - continues its ruthless fight against cheaters.
The developer, which has set itself the goal of creating a "healthy community" of players, has adopted a strategy of bringing lawsuits against the creators and sellers of illegal software that facilitates gameplay.
According to Torrentfreak, this time the creators of Destiny once again took a closer look at the Romanian website Veterancheats, which for the past few years has been offering illegal game assisting apps, including for Destiny 2.
It's worth noting that Bungie sued Veterancheats back in 2021, however, that case got stuck.
The developer apparently hasn't forgotten about the cheat provider and a few days ago filed another lawsuit, this time for a default judgment against the owner of Veterancheats, Mihai Claudiu-Florentin.
Huge compensation
According to Bungie, the defendant sold cheat packs for Destiny 2, such as "Razor," "HLBOT" and "Render." These modifications enabled players to gain an unfair advantage, ruining the fun for the rest of the community.
For copyright infringement and circumvention of technological protection measures Bungie is demanding damages from the developer of Veterancheats, totaling more than $12 million.
Meticulously prepared lawsuit
The developer has prepared a series of information from financial institutions such as Coinbase, PayPal and Stripe for the lawsuit. The data obtained reveals that 5848 separate transactions were made on the defendant's website that could be linked to cheats for Destiny 2.
In total, these transactions generated about $146,000 in revenue, which Bungie is claiming as actual damages for copyright infringement.
In addition, the game developer is also demanding $2,000 for each of the 5,848 transactions made - bringing the total to $11,696,000 for circumvention of DMCA regulations.
The studio's lawyers explain that the above amount is close to the amount the developer has spent on mitigating the presence of cheaters in the game.
As if that wasn't enough, Bungie is also requesting that the defendant be ordered to pay the costs of the lawsuit.
Blackmail attempt
Interestingly, defendant Claudiu-Florentin was said to have briefly communicated with the developer's legal team - at the exact moment when the studio was trying to obtain transaction data from Stripe. The owner of Veterancheat offered to stop selling cheats if only Bungie would drop the pending lawsuit.
Claudiu-Florentin also pointed to competing cheat vendors who continued to offer similar software for Destiny 2, and additionally revealed the creator of the specific software.
However, Bungie, in accordance with the previously mentioned strategy, did not make concessions and continued the case.
The court has not yet issued an official ruling. However, it seems that without an official defense from the owner of Veterancheats, the verdict can only be one - in favor of the game developer, of course.
Big business
Unfortunately, the cheat industry, despite the constant opposition from game developers, is still present in the gaming world. There are many websites on the Internet that provide illegal files that give an advantage in games - mainly online - for a price.
Often the creators of illegal game software operate openly and profit until developers take a closer look at their illegal activities.
When this happens, reactions vary - some cheat websites are even prepared to pay multimillion-dollar fines for copyright infringement, as was the case with Elite Boss Tech, for example.
Not surprisingly, more and more games even from beta versions have anti-cheater systems implemented - following the principle: prevention is better than cure.
