Massive Call of Duty Cheater Banbacklash: Activision Clamps Down on Unfair Play in Latest Update

In a recent development, numerous players of the acclaimed first-person shooter Call of Duty have reported being permanently banned from the game after utilizing a well-known cheat service.

Streamer ItsHapa disclosed on platform X last week that users of ArtificialAiming, a cheat provider with over 19 years of operation, were subjected to a “massive wave of permabans.” This term refers to bans that are irreversible and prevent offenders from creating new accounts. The streamer shared a series of screenshots from a private forum where users of ArtificialAiming’s cheat, specifically those for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, expressed dismay over the bans.

One user wrote, “It’s been a long run. [Good game] all,” while another lamented, “Lost both my main accounts today, one was almost 4 years old with mastery camos and all… I think I am done with [Call of Duty]…. the risk we all took.”

Another expressed frustration, stating, “It’s done for me [I’m] leaving this,” to which another player responded, “Same 🙁.”

Neil Wood, a spokesperson for Activision, the video game publisher behind the Call of Duty series, confirmed  that account bans were indeed implemented, although not exclusively against users of ArtificialAiming. Wood declined to disclose the exact number of players affected by the ban wave. Previous such waves have impacted hundreds of thousands of players at a time.

Activision issued a statement reading, “Our latest enforcement efforts disrupted operations from multiple cheat vendors, disabling their tools and issuing bans to their users. We remain committed to pursuing those who threaten our community — cheaters, cheat makers, and anyone undermining the fair play experience.”

A source familiar with the cheating scene said that ArtificialAiming is a significant and renowned cheat provider, but its cheats have been increasingly detected in recent years.

In a forum post from 2021, an individual who appears to be a staffer at ArtificialAiming reflected on their then-14 years working for the cheat provider and declared that “cheaters won,” as video game companies were compelled to invest millions of dollars to combat cheaters.

“It seems like there is not a single day where anti-cheaters are out there trying to rustle our jimmies. Well, the fact that there still are hundreds of thousands of cheaters out there and a lot of them coming from ArtificialAiming, means that we’re not defeated yet,” they wrote.

Cheats in video games can represent a substantial business. In 2021, Chinese authorities arrested a group allegedly operating the “world’s largest” video game cheating ring for the popular shooter “PUBG Mobile.” The owner and founder of that cheat software stated at the time that they had earned at least $77 million from developing cheats. Other cheat developers have claimed million-dollar earnings, or at least enough to not work for several years. Some have even been compelled to repay millions of dollars to video game companies after successful lawsuits.

In recent years, in response to the escalating popularity and complexity of video game cheats, companies have expanded their anti-cheat teams and technologies, launching anti-cheat systems that run at the kernel level, providing gaming companies with near-complete visibility into computer operations. Activision introduced its kernel-level anti-cheat system Ricochet in 2021, following other gaming titans like Riot Games, which launched a similar system in 2020.