Nobody likes a cheater, especially in the madcap digital playground that is offered by Grand Theft Auto Online, but Take-Two Interactive is attacking what it alleges is a major source of cheaty and exploitative content by filing a lawsuit against a digital marketplace that the company claims is making money off of unauthorized digital goods for the game.
The marketplace in question is known as PlayerAuctions, which sells boosted or modded character accounts, virtual assets, and generated in-game currency, all of which the company alleges is made using “hacking software and other exploits to create digital goods to provide illegal ‘services’” to GTAO players while taking a 13% cut of profits via fees.
The filing argues that PlayerAuctions’ activities infringe on Take-Two’s terms of service, copyright, and trademark. “While GTA lets players experience a fictional underworld of lawless enterprise, the entities behind PlayerAuctions own and operate a real one,” the suit contends. “PlayerAuctions markets to Take-Two’s customers an otherwise impossible experience: new players can begin GTA V with billions in VC and with a massive arsenal of in-game content—such as vehicles, clothing, and weapons – configurations only possible by hacking and modifying the GTA V game.
The company seeks relief in the form of a shutdown of the site and a halt against its owners from helping similar marketplaces as well as compensation in the form of damages, attorney fees, and any profits that the site’s owners have made off of the marketplace’s sales, among other things.
