PUBG hacker group has to pay $10 million in damages

Tencent Games and Krafton have won a lawsuit against an entire ring of PUBG mobile hackers who distributed cheats to players. The hackers had to explain exactly how they managed to hack the game and now have to pay a hefty fine of $10 million to the two companies.

Earlier this week, the court ruled that the hacking ring must pay the game developers a full $10 million in damages. For the two mega-companies, the ruling is an “overwhelming victory” for the video game industry’s fight against cheaters. They also stated that they will use the money to further develop anti-cheating technology in the mobile battle royale.

The hackers have raked in decent money with their cheating

The court not only ordered the hackers to never create cheats again, but also asked them to explain and show in detail how they exploited PUBG Mobile so that companies can protect themselves from it in the future. For some time now, police in China and Tencent have been working together to uncover a major video game cheating operation. Local police called the ring the “world’s largest” case of fraud after a gigantic sum of cash and assets (including several luxury cars), were seized.

“Millions of players around the world enjoy PUBG Mobile and we will ensure the same conditions exist for everyone,” Rick Li, the producer of PUBG Mobile at Tencent Games, said in a statement. “Sadly, the actions of hacker groups undermine the fairness of the game. These rulings send a clear message that we will not tolerate cheating in PUBG Mobile.”

“This legal victory reinforces our shared commitment to protecting our games, PUBG’s intellectual property, and the global community. Fun and fairness are the foundation of the PUBG Mobile gaming experience and cheating in any form will not be tolerated. Therefore, we will continue to vigorously enforce our intellectual property rights,” added KRAFTON, Inc’s Head of PUBG Mobile Product Management, Minu Lee.

Increasingly strict actions against cheaters

Hacking in PUBG and PUBG Mobile has long been a major problem that has bothered many players and has caused some to seek a new game. Recently, Tencent announced a strict anti-cheating countermeasure that will deny players access to the game. As part of this move, even devices will be permanently banned. Cheaters will then no longer be able to log into PUBG Mobile or create a new account.

Tencent also publishes a weekly “Ban Pan Report” that shows the number of banned hackers. Meanwhile, nearly 830,000 accounts have already been banned. In addition, hundreds of accounts on social media (mainly Instagram and Facebook) have been banned for promoting and circulating cheats.

Check out our TikTok, Twitter and Youtube channel for more news about PUBG, as well as many other games!