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Take-Two Interactive, publisher of Grand Theft Auto 5, is suing PlayerAuctions, a Chinese-owned site known for facilitating the trading and selling of player accounts and digital currencies in online games.
That’s as per a report by Polygon late last week, which states that Take-Two is alleging “the website PlayerAuctions.com offers a vast online marketplace containing thousands of listings for unauthorized, infringing GTA 5 content” in a complaint.
The publisher’s lawyer then goes on to accuse PlayerAuctions of peddling “heavily modified player accounts, in-game assets, and virtual currency—all gained by using hacking software, cheats, and technical exploits.”
The complaint proceeds to allege that PlayerAuctions “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”, and that the site “reaps millions in revenue by taking a cut of every transaction on its marketplace.”
It also points fingers at certain policies of the website, such as a refund service if the account you bought happens to get banned for, well, being a bought account. “PlayerAuctions offers this ‘protection’ because it knows the hacked player account listings on its marketplace are infringing and unauthorized under Take-Two’s terms of service.”
Finally, Take-Two claims that it’s already sent a fleet of cease and desist orders, which PlayerAuctions has simply ignored:
“Take-Two has repeatedly confronted PlayerAuctions with evidence of infringement and other tortious conduct, and has demanded that it cease and desist its unlawful activities. PlayerAuctions refuses to stop because it continues to rake in illicit profits through the wholesale, willful infringement of Take-Two’s copyrights and trademarks, and the intentional interference with Take-Two’s relationships with its customers.
“Accordingly, Take-Two brings this lawsuit to shut down PlayerAuctions’ rampant infringing online marketplace, end its corrupt business model, and protect the integrity of GTA V for its players.” The publisher is claiming relief on the grounds of copyright and trademark infringement.
If you’re at all familiar with MMOs, you’ll know this sort of thing isn’t new—gold sellers and account ‘service providers’ have run amok since the days of yore. Developers are in a constant war with bots, one seemingly defined by attrition and having precious little end. Certain public figures, ahem, have also made use of similar services before.
It’s an arms race big enough that some games, like World of Warcraft, have to combat it by straight-up allowing you to buy gold through methods like the WoW Token, which leads to other problems, like digital inflation.
While GTA Online isn’t exactly an MMO in the more traditional sense, it’s still been an enduring name in the live service space, and it’s a money-making machine for Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar. So much so that more traditional DLCs were shoved out of the way so its online component could flourish. I’m not shocked that Take-Two is taking aim at PlayerAuctions for illegitimately muscling in on its business.
Though, to be fair, it’s not just an issue of money. It is very much true that, in order to stay competitive, the sellers PlayerAuctions facilitates will hack accounts rather than grind out digital currencies or level accounts themselves. There’s a very real argument you can make that these sorts of ecosystems aren’t just annoying for players, but risking their online safety, as well. PlayerAuctions is also in trouble from another online giant, too—with Roblox coming for it in a lawsuit last month.
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Kurt Indovina
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