Activision Is Suing the Creators of a Call of Duty Hack It Says Is So 'Toxic' It's Causing Fans to Quit Playing the PC Version of Black Ops 6 Altogether

Activision is suing the radical down a well-known Call of Duty hack it alleged is truthful "toxic" it's causing fans to halt playing the PC mentation of Black Ops 6 altogether.

The lawsuit, filed successful the Central District of California and viewed by IGN, takes enactment against Lergware and GameHook, 2 Call of Duty hacks that Activision has been trying to unopen down for immoderate time.

Both hacks see a acceptable of selftitled "toxic" functions, including features that fto users "kick" different players from Activision’s multiplayer servers (sometimes referred to arsenic a "rage" cheat), oregon adjacent clang multiplayer servers entirely.

GameHook besides lets players cheat by utilizing "aimbots," which origin weapons to automatically deed opponents, and "ESP Bots," which place hostile positions and let players to spot done walls oregon different obstacles.

Activision named Ryan Rothholz, known online arsenic Lerggy, arsenic the archetypal creator of Lergware successful its lawsuit. Activision alleged that Rothholz, of Antioch, Tennessee, developed and released Lergware successful 2021 oregon 2022 and sold it for $25 via his website. Then, successful 2023, Rothholz allegedly updated Lergware to enactment with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone. “The update resulted successful online subordinate 'attacks' becoming progressively frequent, causing immoderate users to station informing messages online,” Activision said.

In response, successful June 2023 Activision sent a cease-and-desist missive to Rothholz. In effect to that, Activision alleged, Rothholz posted the missive to an online Discord assemblage dedicated to Lergware and “openly mocked Activision.”

Still, aboriginal successful June, Rothholz agreed to comply with the cease-and-desist, but past “simply changed his online alias and distributed his root codification to different video crippled hackers.”

Activision accused Rothholz of past creating a caller Call of Duty hack, the aforementioned GameHook, and recruiting others besides named successful the lawsuit: Collin Gyetvai (“Cid”), of Carbondale, Pennsylvania, and Jordan Newcombe Boothey (“Bossnight55”), of Whyalla Stuart, Australia to enactment arsenic “resellers” of GameHook.

GameHook was made disposable for respective Call of Duty games, Activision said, including Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops Cold War, and past year’s Black Ops 6. GameHook outgo astatine slightest $50 per Call of Duty game, with $375 for beingness entree to a “master key” to usage each GameHook versions for each supported Call of Duty games. Activision said it believes “hundreds, if not thousands” of radical bought GameHook and utilized it to cheat successful Call of Duty games.

“Activision is informed and believes, and connected that ground alleges, that Defendants person received important gross from their activities, to the detriment of Activision and its subordinate community,” the suit claims.

Activision said it had fixed the defendants an accidental to comply with its demands without litigation, but “rather than prosecute with Activision, each has ignored Activision’s outreach, necessitating this lawsuit.”

For example, successful March 2025, Activision sent cease-and-desist letters to Rothholz and the different Defendants, and portion online storefronts were unopen down, nary confirmed they would cease from creating oregon selling Call of Duty hacks, and nary gave copies of the GameHook root codification to Activision.

Activision said it believes Rothholz, Gyetvai, and Boothey are continuing to administer oregon merchantability the GameHook hacks oregon different Call of Duty hacks done backstage channels oregon via the GameHook Discord server.

“Additionally, oregon alternatively, Activision has crushed to judge that Rothholz, Gyetvai, and Boothey mean to ‘re-brand’ GameHook and connection the GameHook COD Hacks oregon akin COD Hacks nether a antithetic title, utilizing antithetic online aliases,” the suit alleged.

“Activision has attempted to scope retired to Rothholz, Gyetvai, and Boothey informally, but they person not responded to Activision’s outreach. Accordingly, Activision had nary prime but to record this lawsuit.”

Activision wants monetary damages, injunctive and different equitable relief, and punitive damages against Defendants. It said the damages could magnitude to millions of dollars.

“Defendants’ behaviour harms Activision’s estimation and results successful the nonaccomplishment of important lawsuit goodwill,” Activision said. “In fact, GameHook has been truthful frustrating to COD players that it received important attraction connected societal media and, connected accusation and belief, has caused players to halt playing oregon debar the PC mentation of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.”

Call of Duty has a estimation for cheating (it comes with the territory of being specified a hugely fashionable shooter and having a free-to-download conflict royale). Cheating is much prevalent connected PC (Activision precocious confirmed arsenic much, to the constituent wherever it said if you judge you’ve died unfairly to a console player, it’s overmuch much apt that they’ve utilized ‘intel advantage’ than cheats). So, immoderate console players caput consecutive into Call of Duty’s settings to crook disconnected crossplay crossed the board, conscionable to instrumentality the imaginable for PC cheaters ruining their time retired of the equation. With the motorboat of Season 3, Activision adjacent added caller console-only crossplay options for regular multiplayer, though PC players who bash not cheat said they were being unfairly punished.

Activision, arsenic IGN has reported, has spent millions of dollars successful the conflict against Call of Duty cheat makers, cheat sellers, and cheat users, with a fig of caller high-profile successes. In March, Phantom Overlay announced it was shutting down, with fans reacting successful disbelief that specified a salient Call of Duty cheat supplier could autumn by the wayside. Also successful March, IGN reported connected 4 cheat providers that were unopen down up of the hotly anticipated instrumentality of Verdansk to Warzone.

This week, amid rising complaints astir cheating crossed Warzone and Black Ops 6, Activision said it had unopen down 5 much cheat makers since its past advancement study (this is connected apical of the 20+ it’s unopen down since Black Ops 6 came retired past year), and had “disrupted” implicit 150 cheat sellers successful the aforesaid period. Activision said it had besides issued cease-and-desist demands to respective companies that make and merchantability third-party hardware utilized to cheat successful Call of Duty games, successful a determination wide believed to beryllium targeting Cronus users.

A conception of the suit makes it wide wherefore Activision takes Call of work cheating truthful seriously: due to the fact that it knows it tin person a important interaction connected its bottommost line:

Activision works precise hard to guarantee that the COD Games connection consistently compelling subordinate experiences truthful that customers volition stay engaged successful the COD Games, proceed to play them for sustained periods of time, and beryllium excited astir aboriginal releases. If players comprehend that a crippled is unfair oregon that the multiplayer acquisition is not moving properly, including due to the fact that others are cheating oregon disrupting and/or hacking multiplayer servers, players whitethorn turn frustrated with the COD Games, go little funny successful playing and supporting them (including by purchasing caller games and items) and whitethorn adjacent halt playing entirely. Cheating and hacking truthful not lone harms (and could adjacent destroy) COD subordinate communities, but besides impacts Activision’s quality to connection the accelerated paced, stable, high-quality online gameplay millions of fans person travel to expect from Activision and the COD Games.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].