In Destiny 2 and Valorant, cheaters are now facing tougher challenges. Bungie and Riot are intimidating a seller of cheating software with a joint lawsuit. This marks Bungie’s second victory against such a provider.
This lawsuit is about: MeinMMO reported on January 12 that the creators behind the two online shooters Destiny 2 and Valorant have united in court. Bungie and Riot jointly filed a civil suit against “GatorCheats” and its operator Cameron Santos.
The studios’ lawyers accused Santos of developing cheats and disseminating them on his site. According to the indictment (via scribd.com), the following damages were incurred:
- Millions in damages for Bungie and Riot – since both Destiny 2 and Valorant can be played for free and the main source of income then comes from in-game purchases.
- The reputation of Destiny 2 and Valorant has suffered irreparable harm, and the trust of honest players has been violated. Therefore, Guardians and Agents spend less money in the shop.
Santos allegedly profited thousands of dollars and did not respond to previous cease-and-desist requests. Therefore, Bungie and Riot demanded damages and that GatorCheats and its partner sites and social media accounts cease to distribute cheats.
That was it for the cheat shop
This is what happened now: An official ruling has not yet been made. We do not yet know whether or what penalty the court in California will impose. However, the lawsuit has already achieved some success.
GatorCheats has ceased operations. Anyone who wishes to visit the site is greeted by this text:
We also find the same text on the Twitter account of GatorCheats (via Twitter). On January 12, the shop page still stated that they would return soon; only renovations were taking place for the time being. Now, however, the operators have likely shut down the site due to the lawsuit.
What does this mean? This initially means that intentional cheaters will have to get their cheats elsewhere. This affects not only Destiny 2 and Valorant. For all other “supported” games, things are currently at a standstill.
According to PCGamesN, GatorCheats was already served by Activision-Blizzard in September 2020 with a cease-and-desist order under the threat of lawsuit, to stop distributing cheats for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone. At that time, however, Santos had maintained support for previously sold cheats, just not sold any new subscriptions.
Bungie and the fight against cheaters
The PC version of Destiny 2 is currently plagued by cheaters in the Crucible.
Bungie subsequently announced that it wants to fight cheaters more quietly. The Destiny developer is largely silent here – unfortunately very to the dismay of the community.
By doing so, they aim not to reveal their strategy to dishonest players and to maintain the element of surprise. Santos is likely to be quite surprised by the lawsuit being pursued against him and the demanded damages.
However, in October 2020, Bungie was already able to achieve a significant victory against another cheat seller:
Do you think that cheat sellers will gradually fall one by one, allowing cheaters to be dealt with? Or will players have to continue to struggle with aim-botters, wallhackers, and worse for a long time? Let us know your opinion in the comments.
For console Guardians, a better DDoS protection is set to be implemented in spring 2021. What we know about upcoming content can be found here: Destiny 2 has revealed more about Season 13 than ever before
