Summary
It seems more publishers are taking a stronger stance against cheaters and hackers.Epic Gamesrecentlysued someone who was caught cheatingto make his way into the 2023FortniteChampionship Series Grand Finals. They also tooklegal action against a fraudster who hacked multiple Fortnite accounts and sold them for a profit. GTA publisher Take-Two has sued a company illegally selling GTA content.
PlayerAuctions is a China-based company that is essentially a marketplace for third party video game assets and content. Essentially, it’s Ebay for those who want to sell accounts loaded up with high-tier weapons and unlocks to those who want to earn them the easy way.Take-Two Interactiveis now suing the company for selling theseGTA Onlinegoods as a breach of the user agreement.
The Old Take-Two Takedown
As spotted byPolygon, the lawsuit documents describe the marketplace as such: “While GTA lets players experience a fictional underworld of lawless enterprise, the entities behind PlayerAuctions own and operate a real one: the website PlayerAuctions.com offers a vast online marketplace containing thousands of listings for unauthorized, infringing GTA V content – including heavily modified player accounts, in-game assets, and virtual currency – all gained by using hacking software, cheats, and technical exploits.”
The documents go on to say that PlayerAuctions makes “millions in revenue” every year thanks to the transactions on the marketplace. These items are attained by “hacking software and other exploits to create digital goods to provide illegal ‘services’.” The court filing went into great detail about how PlayerAuctions lures in players.
“PlayerAuctions markets to Take-Two’s customers an otherwise impossible experience: new players can begin GTA V with billions in VC and with a massive arsenal of in-game content—such as vehicles, clothing, and weapons—configurations only possible by hacking and modifying the GTA V game in breach of the Rockstar TOS.”
They also mentioned that in buying these services, players need to give control of their accounts temporarily to unknown entities, and are hence in violation of the terms of service.
