{"id":15328,"date":"2026-09-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/09\/18\/call-of-duty-maker-activision-says-the-video-game-cheat-market-generates-8-5-billion-a-year\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:00:00","slug":"call-of-duty-maker-activision-says-the-video-game-cheat-market-generates-8-5-billion-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/09\/18\/call-of-duty-maker-activision-says-the-video-game-cheat-market-generates-8-5-billion-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Call of Duty Maker Activision Says the Video Game Cheat Market Generates $8.5 Billion a Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"article-page\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets-prd.ignimgs.com\/2026\/09\/18\/ss-6b8f4040a1e923f036e04d9eb21ecb0f866be57e-1920x1080-1789741799815.jpg\" \/>\n<section data-transform=\"mobile-ad-break\"><\/section>\n<p>Ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4\u2019s release, Activision has spoken about the \u201cmulti-billion-dollar market\u201d behind video game cheats.<\/p>\n<p>Cheating is a fact of life in pretty much all online games, but Call of Duty has a reputation for it, exacerbated by the free-to-download battle royale, Warzone. Activision, like other video game companies, faces an uphill battle against cheaters and those who make and profit from them, and generative AI has made that battle even more complex.<\/p>\n<p>Now, to hammer home the point about how big a deal video game cheating is, Activision&#8217;s Team Ricochet has posted a blog that breaks down the business behind it.<\/p>\n<section data-transform=\"slideshow\" data-slug=\"the-best-call-of-duty-campaigns\" data-value=\"the-best-call-of-duty-campaigns\" data-type=\"slug\" data-caption=\"\"><\/section>\n<p>\u201cCheat sellers have built a sprawling, multi-billion-dollar marketplace of resellers, subscription services, cheat reskins, illicit accounts, spoofing tools, and organized distribution networks,\u201d Activision said, pointing to recent analysis that suggests cheat subscriptions across just 15 games generates roughly $3.5 billion annually. Activision estimates that when you include adjacent industries such as account sales, boosting, spoofing, and other services, the broader cheating economy generates about $8.5 billion each year.<\/p>\n<p>You might have seen Activision post bodycam footage of a Call of Duty cheat maker being served a cease and desist order \u2014 that\u2019s part of the legal action the company takes here. But it\u2019s also using \u201ctechnical detection\u201d to try to clamp down on cheat makers.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">RICOCHET Anti-Cheat doesn&#8217;t end when your match does.<\/p>\n<p>Cheat makers operate around the world. So do we. We\u2019re taking the fight directly to cheat sellers.<\/p>\n<p>Last weekend during the Closed Beta, we went to Ohio to takedown Elocarry.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not an isolated case&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IP69qlGgDD\">pic.twitter.com\/IP69qlGgDD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CallofDuty\/status\/2093353055605379268?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 28, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Activision said it\u2019s \u201cdisrupted\u201d more than 375 reseller operations, issued more than 80 cease-and-desist demands, and helped shut down 31 primary cheat vendors. \u201cCheat sellers often use marketing tactics and social posts to make their operations look stable, even when they are under significant pressure,\u201d Activision said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen cheat developers use social platforms to explain months of downtime with excuses like \u2018the flu,\u2019 \u2018surgery,\u2019 or a \u2018car accident\u2019 rather than acknowledge their products were detected and no longer reliable. Those messages are part of the playbook they use to reassure customers while our systems continue disrupting their networks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Activision also pointed out that cheating is getting more expensive off the back of pressure it\u2019s applying to the ecosystem. But still, some of the figures it\u2019s released are eye-watering. It said cheaters could spend more than $1,000 a year just to cheat, when you consider some subscription cheats can cost upwards of $100 on the higher end, and spoofers add another recurring fee. DMA-related hardware and services drive the cost even more.<\/p>\n<section data-transform=\"ignvideo\" data-slug=\"call-of-duty-modern-warfare-4-official-campaign-trailer-xbox-tgs-2026-broadcast\" data-loop=\"\"><\/section>\n<p>\u201cOver the course of one year, some players spend hundreds of dollars \u2014 if not thousands \u2014 trying to maintain access to cheats, evasion tools, and replacement accounts,\u201d Activision said. \u201cUltimately, cheating is a losing investment. Every time we identify and remove a bad actor, the money they spent cheating goes with them \u2014 all for a temporary ego boost.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As always, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Most accept Activision will never stamp cheating out of Call of Duty entirely, but the hope is that it will be less prevalent in Modern Warfare 4 than it has been in previous years.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, IGN interviewed David Andrews, Senior Director of Game Security for Call of Duty, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/call-of-dutys-anti-cheat-boss-dispels-cheating-myths-breaks-down-review-process-and-more\">to dispel some myths about Call of Duty cheating<\/a> \u2014 and the work Activision does to prevent it.<\/p>\n<p>Modern Warfare 4 launches October 22.<\/p>\n<section data-transform=\"divider\"><\/section>\n<section data-transform=\"author-sign-off\" data-id=\"ad651d6b-b2ae-4500-bed9-cb7b5247c0b6\"><\/section>\n\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4\u2019s release, Activision has spoken about the \u201cmulti-billion-dollar market\u201d behind video game cheats. Cheating is a fact of life in pretty much all online games, but Call of Duty has a reputation for it, exacerbated by the free-to-download battle royale, Warzone. Activision, like other video game companies, faces [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Call of Duty Maker Activision Says the Video Game Cheat Market Generates $8.5 Billion a Year - Next Level News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stay on top of the gaming world with Next Level News. 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