Grand Theft Auto and Borderlands publisher Take-Two Interactive is suing PlayerAuctions – an online marketplace already targeted in a complaint by Roblox – accusing it of selling “heavily modified” player accounts, items, and virtual currency obtained through hacks and cheats.
Take-Two’s lawsuit – filed in the US Central District Court of California last week and spotted by Polygon – targets PlayerAuctions’ Chinese owner Paiao Network Technology. It accuses the company of running a “lawless enterprise”, claiming it has “full knowledge” of the alleged “rampant infringement and other unauthorised conduct” happening on its site.
“[This] is not a regular online marketplace,” reads the filing. “Instead, [it] runs a sophisticated sales platform and actively recruits ‘sellers’ skilled at using hacking software and other exploits to create infringing digital goods and to provide illegal ‘services’ to players of GTA 5.” More specifically, Take-Two claims PlayerAuctions contains “thousands of listings for unauthorised, infringing GTA 5 content – including heavily modified player accounts, in-game assets, and virtual currency – all gained by using hacking software, cheats, and technical exploits.”
Take-Two claims PlayerAuctions sells accounts manipulated through hacking to provide “exorbitantly high game level ranking and in-game currency amounts”, as well as content ordinarily only accessible through gameplay or purchases. “At the scale of its website,” continues the lawsuit, “PlayerAuctions risks upending the GTA 5 player experience and interferes with the balance and fairness of the game.”