The creators of various Destiny 2 cheat programs, Elite Boss Tech, have agreed to pay a $13.5 million settlement to Bungie.
As reported by TorrentFreak, Bungie filed a lawsuit against Elite Boss Tech for several alleged offences, including breaching copyright law, racketeering, fraud and money laundering in August last year. The $13.5 million settlement was calculated by taking the cost per violation, calculated at $2000, and multiplying it by the number of times the software was downloaded, which was 6,765 times.
In court filings, Bungie stated that the commercial viability of Destiny 2 depends on the integrity of its gameplay and cheat programs like those created by the defendants threaten the experience of players. They also added that anti-cheating countermeasures have cost them “exorbitant amounts of money.” The defendants argued that since no copies of Destiny 2 were distributed and no derivative works were created, their software did not violate any copyright. However, Elite Boss Tech did decide to settle in the end.
The liability was accepted by Robert James Duthie Nelson, Elite Boss Tech and 11020781 Canada. The settlement includes an admission that the software injects code into Destiny 2, thereby creating an unlicensed work. There is also a proposed permanent injunction contained within the consent judgement which essentially forbids the defendants from creating any software for Bungie games and also from participating in content creation or advising anyone on creating software which circumvents Bungie’s anti-cheat systems.
This is another line in several lawsuits development studios have taken against third-party cheat program creators. A joint lawsuit between Bungie and Riot Games netted the pair a $2 million settlement from Destiny 2 and Valorant cheat program creators. Nintendo, Activision, Epic Games and Ubisoft have also all filed lawsuits against third-party cheat developers in the past. Pokémon GO creators Niantic received a $5 million settlement from cheat creators early last year.
The judge has yet to sign off on the consent judgement but is expected to.
