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Blizzard is suing the creator of an Overwatch cheating program

Blizzard has already taken an impressive stance against cheaters in Overwatch but now the studio is also going after the cheat creators. Blizzard is suing Bossland, a German cheat maker on the grounds of copyright infringement, unfair competition and a violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause.

The Overwatch cheat in question would give the user ESP, allowing them to see hostiles, their names and how far away they are. Being a premium hack, it was purchasable on a subscription basis, starting at €12.95 per month.

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As TorrentFreak points out, Blizzard filed its lawsuit against Bossland in California and it claims that Bossland is causing irreparable harm to Blizzard: “The Buddy Bots and the Overwatch Cheat (collectively, the “Bossland Hacks”) have caused, and are continuing to cause, massive and irreparable harm to Blizzard. Blizzard’s business depends upon its games being enjoyable and fair for players of all skill levels, and Blizzard expends an enormous amount of time and money to ensure that this is the case. The Bossland Hacks destroy the integrity of Blizzard Games, thereby alienating and frustrating legitimate players and diverting revenue from Blizzard to Defendants.”

Right now, Bossland's ESP cheat is still online but with this lawsuit going through, that will likely change.

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KitGuru Says: Blizzard has been unforgiving with those cheating in Overwatch and now the studio is going after those supplying the programs in the first place. Do you guys think it is fair of Blizzard to go after cheat programmers? It seems to make sense if they are profiting from subscription fees. 

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12 comments

  1. This is good news especially if they win as it will set a precedence for future cases and may mean other gaming companies follow.

  2. yeah way to go blizzard, bad news for cheater

  3. Good job Blizzard! F**k those guys. Hackers are constantly killing communities from great games, especially on F2P games or older titles like MW2. I love that Blizzard is actually willing to crack down on these guys, love for their games and their communities, good guy Blizzard! 😀

  4. Júlio Sencadas

    They should face cheaters themselves with legal action, because they agreed to the terms of the game when installing so they are tampering with licensed code themselves

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  7. that’s like arresting all the drug users, and not the drug provider.

    There will always be people who will want to cheat, but not have the ability.
    You take out a big supplier of drugs/cheats/hacks, you lower the amount of people using them because they cannot get them.

    I actually agree, Blizzard goes out of their way to balance their games, for a company to make cheats, it makes Blizzard’s investment lose value. If Blizzard games had balance issues and they were never addressed, they wouldn’t be such popular competitive games

  8. By your logic i should arrest beer makers instead of drunk drivers since beer makers were the ones that made the beer, and ignore the fact that you drank the beer out of your own free will and decided to drive out of your free will…Or i should arrest gun makers because people kill each other with guns out of their free will, and ignore that you can use the same guns for target pratice and not hurt anyone…. Have you already seen how flawed your logic is, you have to be aware that if you drink and drive you will be arrested because you are endangering others, its the same with online cheating the cheats are there but you are not obliged to use them, so if you use them you have to acept that you will get “arrested” for using it since it was your free made decision to use it in the first place…In resume if you comit a crime while using or being under the effect of something that you took by your own choice you should know that you will be arrested…Your logic is broken at the core, sorry mate.

  9. Your logic is flawed, and a strawman.

    You are acting like you have this profound knowledge, but it borders retardation.

    Where you or I stand on guns is an entire subject on it’s own, since those are actual weapons whose only purpose is to cause bodily damage. That is another debate on it’s own.

    People are expected to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for themselves, which includes knowing the law. IGNORANCE of the law is not a defense in any country in the world.

    Distribution of programs that give an advantage in Blizzard games which have a reputation for being balanced and punishing cheaters, obviously will eventually cause enough of an imbalance that it could harm Blizzard’s reputation. Is it illegal to simply make a program that cheats in a Blizzard game? No. Is it illegal to even use it yourself? No, but EULA’s supposedly stand up in court and you agreed not to use programs to give an advantage, so tempt the ban gods if you want.
    But when you commit an action that causes/could cause someone else a financial loss and they can prove it, you can’t claim that you aren’t doing anything wrong. They can and will send you a cease and desist notice, people don’t play around with money.

    In fact, i’d go as far as saying the site is “conspiring to cause a financial loss and damage to the reputation.” The individual users could not incite such a loss on their own, but the head of the site distributing obviously was attempting to facilitate this. Most of them probably couldn’t even create the scripts/programs on their own without it already being put together in a neat package for them.

    just like the people producing overwatch “art”.
    the “art” was showing up on simple game searches and being associated with the game, tarnishing it’s name since mother’s obviously googled the game for their children.

    also: i’d like to add, they did punish the users. They ban their accounts, as they said they would in the EULA. There is no way they could prove a financial loss from each individual player. Instead of making programs to cheat, why don’t they make actual USEFUL mods, like user interface redesigns with party ultimate cooldowns and monetinize something that SUPPORTS the game, rather than tries to $*** on it

    literally pandering to the lowest common denominator of videogamers. People who make the game less fun for others by cheating. If you want to cheat, go play single player. I want to play against people, not a script. If you aren’t good, guess what? The competitive system ranks you with similar skilled players! Get over the fact your number isn’t as big as the guy on twitch. Either practice to get that good, or just accept you aren’t that good and enjoy yourself, maybe put your efforts into something productive so you don’t need to cheat in a game to feel satisfaction. It’s just a game, after all.

  10. You act like a kid, the only thing you said right in all of that extensive comment is that you have to take responsability for your actions, so if you cheat in a game you should expect to be banned, and EULA’s are to be read if you agree with the eula then you have to follow the guidelines described in it, or else any problem resulting from non reading it (like using programs that edit game code NOT PATENTED TO YOU) will be only yours, like getting banned or getting a lawsuit for altering licensed code…I give you a last example:

    There are drugs being sold, are you obliged to buy or use them? -If you do any of those you can be arrested…

    So why would cheating be any different…You Sir have what is called “DOUBLE STANDARDS”

    Cheat makers only make the program to alter a certain game code they dont alter the game code in itselft, the cheaters that use the program on the other hand, do alter game code, i think you’re missing that little detail

  11. the point is what they are distributing could cause an inbalance which would likely damage blizzards reputation and sales if they weren’t known for having clean servers.

    they could incite a financial loss once they distribute enough of their “product”, damaging the brand.

  12. And you can’t edit licensed code(you need to pay a fee), which also is eligle for a lawsuit…

    Finally we’re getting somewhere 😀