Bungie has indeed set a precedent with Destiny 2, as a few days ago it was decided that a site specializing in cheating had infringed on the studio’s copyright.

Activision Blizzard won a $14.5 million lawsuit against cheat site EngineOwning, which was ordered to stop developing cheat software and turn the site over to Activision. The case began in 2022, when the publisher accused EngineOwning of “trafficking in circumvention devices,” “intentional interference with contractual relations,” and “unfair competition.”

EngineOwning provides a subscription-based offering of aimbots, triggerbots, and wall hacks for games such as Titanfall 2, Counter-Strike 2, and several Battlefield and Call of Duty games. In its lawsuit, Activision called the cheats malicious software that allows users to gain an unfair advantage, and therefore demanded that the service be shut down and sought damages, including all “unlawful proceeds” generated by the site.

The Verge reported on the May 28 ruling. No one from EngineOwning has appeared in court since last July, so the court awarded Activision $14,465,000, plus attorney’s fees ($292,912). An injunction was also issued against future development and sale of EngineOwning cheats, and an order was issued to transfer ownership of the engineowning.to domain to Activision. Only EngineOwning has since relocated, from Germany in 2022 to Dubai today, and the site said in a statement that it will continue to make and run Call of Duty cheats.

The statement reads, “There have been a lot of false claims made regarding the lawsuit against EngineOwning. All of the people named in the lawsuit are inactive and have been for a long time. The project was transferred to a new owner years ago. Some news articles claim that Activision has gained access to our users’ data. This is completely false, and unsurprisingly, these news articles don’t link to any source. All relevant documents regarding the lawsuit are publicly available if you want to look them up. Now Activision is trying to claim our engineowning.to domain. We have created backup domains and kindly ask you to bookmark them. We hope and believe that our domain registrar will not give in to this bogus claim, which would not have been approved by any clear-headed judge with even basic democratic values in a proper jurisdiction.

A test version of the new Call of Duty cheat will be released by them after the start of the fourth season, and after the restoration of the paid version, a free, limited version of Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone will also be released. If the cheats are not identified again, the frozen subscriptions will become active again…

Source: PCGamer, The Verge, Documentcloud, EngineOwning