Jury awards Bungie victory in landmark anti-cheat decision

Yesterday’s jury decision awarded Bungie (PDF) a tidy sum of $63,210. Bungie attorney James Parker said in an emailed statement to the edge The company is “committed to our players and will continue to protect them from fraud, including taking this and future cases to trial.”

In 2021, Bungie filed a lawsuit against AimJunkies and four defendants (here’s a PDF Complaint), alleging, among other things, that they were hacked Destiny 2 To copy the code used in cheating operations. Some of Bungie’s complaints – such as AimJunkies’ violation of Provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Preventing circumvention of copyright protection technology – went to arbitration and saw Benji wins $4 million. AimJunkies appealed after the judge affirmed this award. This appeal is still being processed, as well ribbed Written this week.

Phoenix Digital founder David Schaefer will move to dismiss the jury’s verdict and appeal it if necessary. According to Totilo. However, the ruling is important, given that fraud claims tend to end in other ways, such as settlements. (Example: Judge Close a grand theft auto Scam dealer In 2018 after a Take-Two Interactive lawsuit, or when Bungie settled another cheating lawsuit in 2022 for $13.5 million.)

A win would just mean a change in Bungie’s pocket, and is unlikely to put an end to online cheating, but it does score the jury on the legality of creating such cheats. That makes this more significant than Bungie’s $63,000 pocket change prize allows.