[GameSpot] - Bungie Says The Days Of Destiny 2 Cheat-Makers Are Numbered

[343iBot]

The last couple of years have seen Destiny 2 developer Bungie take a hardline stance against cheaters, and in a new court case, the company has delivered its strongest warning yet. In a case filed against cheat-maker Ring-1 on August 1, Bungie said that "the days of Destiny 2 cheaters being free to engage in a wholesale assault on the Destiny 2 game and its community without fear of consequences are over."

Bungie had initially taken Ring-1 to court in 2021, and the company reached a settlement with three of the four named defendants in that case in late 2022 (via Torrentfreak). The fourth defendant failed to respond to the suit, resulting in Bungie requesting a default judgment of $2.2 million. The judge rejected Bungie's request, ruling that since the fourth defendant was "not an original developer of the software or an original participant in the Ring-1 enterprise" and had a role similar to that of a "customer service representative," they would not have to pay any damages.

In the new lawsuit against Ring-1, Bungie is pursuing 10 named defendants and 40 "John Does" in its case. Bungie's previous court cases against cheat-makers have set new legal precedents, and it says that those lawsuits "have repeatedly confirmed that the sale and use of cheat software violates a raft of federal and state laws, breaches users' contracts with Bungie (the Limited Software License Agreement that users accept to gain access to Destiny 2) and is a basis for significant tort liability."

"Bungie's litigation, and litigation victories, have not gone unnoticed; they have been widely covered in the gaming industry press and beyond. Defendants, in other words, have been more than placed on notice that their conduct is tortious, wrongful, and in fact illegal, and have had every opportunity to voluntarily cease it," Bungie's complaint reads. "Instead, the Ring -1 Enterprise has deliberately and willfully continued to engage in that conduct, secure in the belief that they can avoid consequences for it. And the Ring -1 Cheat is particularly dangerous, predicated on an insidious misuse of the hypervisor layer of users' operating systems that puts their computers and others' at risk."

For now, Ring-1 is still operating and selling its line of "undetected" cheats that cost users $59 a month to access. Bungie's last court victory proved to be a costly defeat for cheat-maker Lavicheats, as the Destiny studio won a $6.7 million settlement in US district court.

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