Activision has outlined the significant financial scale of video game cheating, asserting that the ecosystem, encompassing services like account sales, boosting, and spoofing, generates approximately £6.3 billion ($8.5 billion) per year. This figure was published by the publisher's dedicated anti-cheat team, Ricochet.
According to the Ricochet team, cheat subscriptions across 15 different games alone account for around £2.6 billion ($3.5 billion) of the total annual revenue. The publisher highlighted that cheat creators operate globally and that Activision is directly confronting these sellers.
Activision stated its strategy involves combining technical detection with legal actions to dismantle the cheating infrastructure. This approach has led to the disruption of over 375 reseller operations, the issuance of more than 80 cease-and-desist orders, and the closure of 31 primary cheat vendors. The company also noted that cheat sellers often deceive users about the functionality of their products, blaming detection issues on fabricated personal circumstances to retain customers before admitting the cheats are defunct.
The crackdown has reportedly increased costs for cheaters, with subscriptions reaching upwards of £75 ($100), additional fees for spoofing tools, and some individuals spending over £750 ($1,000) annually. Activision concluded that cheating is a "losing investment," emphasizing that the money spent on illicit services is forfeited when cheaters are removed from games. They reiterated that the Ricochet Anti-Cheat system continues to make cheating more difficult, riskier, and expensive, with layered systems designed to disrupt the market and influence behavior.
Recently, Activision released footage of legal representatives delivering a cease-and-desist order to a known Call of Duty cheat seller at their residence in Ohio. The team stated, "The ecosystem keeps changing. So do we."