Call of Duty publisher Activision launches 2022 by asking a court to shut down War zone cheat maker EngineOwning, which opens a new legal front in its endless war against hackers plaguing its popular online battle royale. In addition to lost revenue, the company is currently under fire for widespread discrimination and ill-treatment in the workplace blames EngineOwning for “irreparable damage to its goodwill and reputation.”
As first reported by The edge, the lawsuit was filed yesterday in the Central District Court of California, alleging that EngineOwning infringed Activision’s copyright, violated its terms of service and damaged sales through the distribution of aimbots, triggerbots and other scams.
“Defendant irreparably damages Activision’s legitimate customers’ ability to enjoy and participate in the online experiences carefully created by Activision,” the lawsuit states. “This in turn could cause users to become dissatisfied with COD Games, lose interest and stop playing.”
EngineOwning announces “high quality cheats” for a number of games in Call of Duty series as well as other online shooting games like Halo infinite and Battlefield V. The subscription package for War zone currently costs less than a dollar a day and, according to the EngineOwning website, remains “undiscovered.”
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The lawsuit follows months of banning waves in the game, with Activision claiming that “tens of thousands” of player accounts have been caught using EngineOwning’s services over the past year. The publisher launched Ricochet anti-cheat software with core-level access last last year in the ongoing arms race against online multiplayer hackers.
The lawsuit also comes as some developers at War zone manufacturer Raven Software and across parts of its parent company enter their third week of strike of layoffs for QA testers announced in December. The group announced it on Twitter yesterday that Activision management has still not acknowledged their demands, which include meetings to discuss the future of the Raven QA department.
“Raven QA executives are so anti-work that they are willing to let their game fail if it means ignoring the demands of its employees,” Campaign to Organize Digital Employees wrote on Twitter. In order to play up the alleged damages to its business in its fraudster case, Activision reminded the court that Call of Duty franchise “generated over $ 3 billion in net bookings” in the last year alone.
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