World of Tanks Bot Creator Faces Up to 5 Years in Prison
A Russian man who created bots for World of Tanks may soon find himself in jail. Wargaming claims that the company has lost $9 million as a result of his activities.
A hacker who allegedly created bots and cheats for World of Tanks has been put on trial in Russia. Belarusian company Wargaming calculated that as a result of his activities it suffered losses of about 670 million rubles (approximately 9 million dollars). If Andrei Kirsanov is found guilty, he could face several years in prison.
The resident of Yekaterinburg allegedly sold thousands of cheats and was accused of creating and distributing malware already back in the spring of 2021. He pleaded guilty at the time but changed his testimony after the first court session. Now, justice officials are reviewing the evidence and interviewing witnesses and victims. If Kirsanov is found guilty, he will have to pay damages. In addition, he faces up to five years in prison.
Among other things, the Russian allegedly created scripts to support targeting, as well as fully autonomous bots. His aim hack reportedly enables players to target enemies and provides 100 percent certainty of hitting weak points in enemy vehicles. The aforementioned bots, on the other hand, are able to "play" an entire match on their own. This enables users to easily amass currency and experience.
An interesting comment was posted by one of the Reddit users, who looks at the presented issue a little differently.
RNG (Random Number Generator) it's responsible for calculating, among other things, armor penetration and damage.
"Misinformation in news as always. rng calculations done by server and he can't pass that. he can just fine-tune your aim marker to search weakspots (tank weakspots in the database) which cause an irrational movement on the gun which you can easily spot and suspect. Wg pushing this fella hard because money is a key issue Wg wants $9 million which is taking advantage of the situation blaming him for the company lost money and player interest while their management did this to the game itself. Ah also he was the cause of the dumb bots (excelcisor bots) very basic while wg has own bots in low tier games already," wrote Lawyersaulgoodmann.
Wargaming has prepared a special analysis, which shows that the company suffered multimillion-dollar losses due to the hacker's activities. The widespread use of bots and all sorts of cheats made many players finally give up playing World of Tanks.
"In the court, we will request that our analysis be included in the briefs of the case. Creating and selling software that violates the rules of the game and its internal economy is the same crime as cheating or stealing. In our opinion, this should be opposed and countered in the legal field," said Wargaming representative Nikita Kuznetsov.
