The fight against cheaters goes into the next round, with Activision claiming the latest victory.
Cheaters in Call of Duty are as old as the franchise itself and have been annoying the community for decades. Even though the endless battle against cheating players will probably never come to an end, Activision was able to score at least a partial success at the end of July.
The ban hammer struck once again, permanently banning over 14,000 accounts in Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 between 27 and 28 July, according to Call of Duty Updates’ X-Account.
In the last 24 hours, new detections directly targeting cheat developers at the source has led to over 14,000 account bans for cheating and hacking in Modern Warfare II and Warzone.
– Call of Duty Updates (@CODUpdates) July 28, 2023
It seems that the new strategy in the fight against hackers is paying off. Activision has moved since the beginning of the year to take direct action against the manufacturers of cheat software in order to prevent players from being able to use cheats in the first place.
Prominent cheat developers such as EngineOwning have been on Activision’s hit list since February 2023 and have already had to pay several million dollars in damages to the Call of Duty publisher and developer.
Little win or big win?
It is not uncommon for a large number of hacker accounts to be suspended shortly after Ricochet updates. Before the release of Season 4, such an update once again reached the community and caused cheaters to hallucinate.
The relatively small number of 14,000 accounts, however, is not directly related to Ricochet in this case, but apparently goes back to investigations against the two cheat manufacturers EngineOwning and InterWebz.
Some industry insiders believe that customers of said companies were no longer able to log in to their online services and thus could no longer disguise their cheat software.
Even if Activision comes out on top in this case, it may only be a drop in the ocean. Dozens of other companies continue to sell their cheating software to cheating gamers, infuriating the honest part of the community.