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Activision wins $14.5m in Call of Duty cheats lawsuit

Activision wins $14.5m in Call of Duty cheats lawsuit

US publishing giant Activision has scored a $14.4 million victory against cheat provider EngineOwning. 

As reported by VentureBeat, the ruling was issued by Judge Michael Fitzgerald of the US District Court of the Central District of California, which put the cheat maker, as well as Garnatz Enterprise Ltd, and 11 people, on the hook for damages, plus $292,912 in legal fees. 

An injunction has also been issued against the EngineOwning website.

Activision filed the lawsuit in January 2022, saying that EngineOwning profited from giving players an unfair advantage using its tech. The COD maker demanded that the outfit be shut down and that all copies of its cheats be destroyed. That's on top of "exemplary and punitive damages", which has now come to pass. 

EngineOwning provides cheats for a variety of games. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1, 2 and 3 as well as Warzone  and Vanguard are on the list, in addition to Counter-Strike 2, Battlefield 5 and Titanfall 2. 


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.