Activision goes hard against COD: Warzone Cheaters, bans 300K Accounts

Activision has banned 300K cheaters across COD & COD: Warzone and has enlisted multiple anti-fraud measures to stop in-game cheating

After banning a total of 3,00,000 accounts permanently across Call of Duty and Call of Duty: Warzone, Activision has sent a clear message to in-game cheaters.

Developers of this global fan favourite game have been getting constant complaints from players about their game being plagued by acts of cheating throughout the course of the game.

Activision ensures fair COD: Warzone

This was the first dedicated update provided by the developer towards their anti-cheating measures. Activision had previously carried out a similar banning exercise for Infinity Ward back in April last year, where a total of 70,000 accounts were permanently struck off.

Post this fiasco, Raven Software started handling COD: Warzone who will provide information to players about bans on a monthly or even weekly basis. Henceforth, Activision’s security and enforcement teams have added multiple measures, both preventative and towards better enforcement throughout this year to nab cheaters as well as cheat providers.

Preventive measure in COD: Warzone

Initial efforts:

In terms of dedicated measures since the launch of the game, Activision has brought out weekly backend security updates for players, who also got in-game reporting options for suspicious activities.

Furthermore, a 2-factor authentication mechanism resulted in 180K accounts being declared redundant. Many third party software providers were also removed on fraudulent grounds.

As an in-house attempt to increase preparedness and surveillance, the developer increased team strength and resources across software development, engineering, data science, legal and monitoring departments.

Areas taken up for improvement:

Activision has carried out technical tweaks to its internal anti-cheat software with additional detection capabilities. There is an ongoing process to dedicate more resources towards monitoring and stricter enforcement.

While player engagement to identify frauds was in place earlier as well, it has been upped with more two-way communication and faster updates.

All this is expected to result in faster bans, better vigilance and gaming integrity for COD players, who were quite vocal in demanding zero tolerance from the developer. Raven Software is expected to make the updating procedure more structured, thereby nullifying any reason to irk gamers.