On January 4, Activision filed a lawsuit in the Central District of California against EngineOwning, one of the more popular sites currently selling cheats for Call of Duty: Warzone and other online shooters. The suit describes EngineOwning as “a German business entity and numerous individuals”, accusing them of “trafficking in circumvention devices”, “intentional interference with contractual relations”, and “unfair competition”.
EngineOwning offers subscriptions that bundle together cheats including aimbots, wallhacks, radar, triggerbots (which shoot automatically when aiming at a player, or optionally whenever one is within a set range), recoil and bullet-spread removal, rapid fire, and various workarounds for anti-cheat detection.
EngineOwning’s cheats are available for various Call of Duty games, as well as several Battlefield games, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Titanfall 2, Splitgate, and Halo Infinite. Apparently they’re working on cheats for Overwatch too.
Activision’s lawsuit “seeks to put a stop to unlawful conduct by an organization that is distributing and selling for profit numerous malicious software products designed to enable members of the public to gain unfair competitive advantages”. The publisher also says, “Activision is entitled to Defendants’ profits” or failing that, “Alternatively, Activision is entitled to the maximum statutory damages… in the amount of $2,500 with respect to each violation by Defendants” as well as legal costs.
Efforts to prevent cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone ramped up late last year, with the addition of a kernel-level program called Ricochet on December 8.