Several players of the popular first-person shooter Call of Duty complained last week that they were permanently banned from the game for using a well-known cheat.
Video game streamer ItsHapa wrote on X last week that Call of Duty players using ArtificialAiming, a cheat provider of more than 19 years, were the targets of a “massive wave of permabans,” referring to bans that cannot be reversed, which prevents cheaters from creating new accounts. The streamer also posted a series of screenshots from the private forum where users of ArtificialAiming’s cheat, particularly the one for 2024’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, lamented the bans.
“It’s been a long run. [Good game] all,” wrote one user.
“Lost both my main accounts today, one was almost 4 years old with mastery camos and all… think I am done with [Call of Duty]…. risk we all took,” said another.
“It’s done for me [I’m] leaving this,” one complained.
“Same 🙁,” added another player.
Neil Wood, a spokesperson for Activision, the video game publisher behind the Call of Duty series, confirmed to TechCrunch that there was a round of account bans, and not just against users of the ArtificialAiming cheat. Wood declined to specify how many players were hit by the wave. In the past, these ban waves have hit hundreds of thousands of players at a time.
“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,” read Activision’s statement.
Contact Us Do you develop cheats, hack video games, or work in anti-cheat? We’d love to hear from you. From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or Do you develop cheats, hack video games, or work in anti-cheat? We’d love to hear from you. From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email .
A person with knowledge of the cheating scene told TechCrunch that ArtificialAiming is a large and storied cheat provider, but that their cheats have been increasingly detected in recent years.
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