Bungie and Riot Games, the developers behind Destiny 2 and Valorant respectively, have had to deal with cheating in their influential first-person shooters since releasing them on PC. The cheating has only worsened since then, and players who opt to play fair and square often find themselves at near-impossible disadvantages. When this happens enough, it leads to them quitting the game and even sometimes bad-mouthing the developers.
As a result, Bungie and Riot Games have decided to come together and sue the biggest distributor of cheats for their games: Cameron Santos and his GatorCheats company. GatorCheats, by its own admission, is a business that sells high-quality cheats and services for the most popular games on the market. Bungie issued a cease and desist to GatorCheats only a few months ago, but according to Bungie's lawyers, the business has continued.
With that said, Bungie and Riot Games' lawsuit seeks restitution for damages suffered and to make GatorCheats hand over all of the profits generated by its cheating software. It estimates that said profits are in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The lawsuit also asks the courts to immediately impose a permanent injunction against Cameron Santos and GatorCheats, which would stop them from both distributing cheats and supporting the ones they already have available. On top of this, the lawsuit asks the courts to shut down all of GatorCheats' cheating software across its platforms.
Bungie and Riot Games invest a lot of money in anti-cheat software due to businesses like GatorCheat, which they don't forget to mention in their lawsuit. With that in mind, if they manage to get everything they want out of the lawsuit, it would be a huge victory for them and their respective communities. It won't erase cheating from either title, but it would deliver a grand enough hit that cheating in Destiny 2 PvP and Valorant should become rare.
A victory in this lawsuit wouldn't just help out Bungie and Riot Games either. Call of Duty publisher Activision has issues with GatorCheats as well. Cheating in Call of Duty is a common topic, enough that Activision finds itself in the same spot as Bungie and Riot Games. Should the suit succeed, cheating in Call of Duty should drastically decrease as well. Game developers have recently won against cheat suppliers, such as Pokemon GO developer Niantic against Global ++, so Bungie and Riot Games may have a good chance.
Valorant is on PC. Destiny 2 is on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Polygon