Activision is suing the people behind a well-known Call of Duty hack it alleged is so "toxic" it's causing fans to stop playing the PC version of Black Ops 6 altogether.
The lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California and viewed by IGN, takes action against Lergware and GameHook, two Call of Duty hacks that Activision has been trying to shut down for some time.
Both hacks include a set of selftitled "toxic" functions, including features that let users "kick" other players from Activision’s multiplayer servers (sometimes referred to as a "rage" cheat), or even crash multiplayer servers entirely.
GameHook also lets players cheat by using "aimbots," which cause weapons to automatically hit opponents, and "ESP Bots," which identify opponent positions and allow players to see through walls or other obstacles.
Activision named Ryan Rothholz, known online as Lerggy, as the original creator of Lergware in its lawsuit. Activision alleged that Rothholz, of Antioch, Tennessee, developed and released Lergware in 2021 or 2022 and sold it for $25 via his website. Then, in 2023, Rothholz allegedly updated Lergware to work with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone. “The update resulted in online player 'attacks' becoming increasingly frequent, causing some users to post warning messages online,” Activision said.
In response, in June 2023 Activision sent a cease-and-desist letter to Rothholz. In response to that, Activision alleged, Rothholz posted the letter to an online Discord community dedicated to Lergware and “openly mocked Activision.”
Still, later in June, Rothholz agreed to comply with the cease-and-desist, but then “simply changed his online alias and distributed his source code to other video game hackers.”
Activision accused Rothholz of then creating a new Call of Duty hack, the aforementioned GameHook, and recruiting others also named in the lawsuit: Collin Gyetvai (“Cid”), of Carbondale, Pennsylvania, and Jordan Newcombe Boothey (“Bossnight55”), of Whyalla Stuart, Australia to act as “resellers” of GameHook.
GameHook was made available for several Call of Duty games, Activision said, including Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops Cold War, and last year’s Black Ops 6. GameHook cost at least $50 per Call of Duty game, with $375 for lifetime access to a “master key” to use all GameHook versions for all supported Call of Duty games. Activision said it believes “hundreds, if not thousands” of people bought GameHook and used it to cheat in Call of Duty games.
“Activision is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that Defendants have received significant revenue from their activities, to the detriment of Activision and its player community,” the lawsuit claims.
Activision said it had given the defendants an opportunity to comply with its demands without litigation, but “rather than engage with Activision, each has ignored Activision’s outreach, necessitating this lawsuit.”
For example, in March 2025, Activision sent cease-and-desist letters to Rothholz and the other Defendants, and while online storefronts were shut down, none confirmed they would cease from creating or selling Call of Duty hacks, and none gave copies of the GameHook source code to Activision.
Activision said it believes Rothholz, Gyetvai, and Boothey are continuing to distribute or sell the GameHook hacks or other Call of Duty hacks through private channels or via the GameHook Discord server.
“Additionally, or alternatively, Activision has reason to believe that Rothholz, Gyetvai, and Boothey intend to ‘re-brand’ GameHook and offer the GameHook COD Hacks or similar COD Hacks under a different title, using different online aliases,” the lawsuit alleged.
“Activision has attempted to reach out to Rothholz, Gyetvai, and Boothey informally, but they have not responded to Activision’s outreach. Accordingly, Activision had no choice but to file this lawsuit.”
Activision wants monetary damages, injunctive and other equitable relief, and punitive damages against Defendants. It said the damages could amount to millions of dollars.
“Defendants’ conduct harms Activision’s reputation and results in the loss of significant customer goodwill,” Activision said. “In fact, GameHook has been so frustrating to COD players that it received significant attention on social media and, on information and belief, has caused players to stop playing or avoid the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.”
Call of Duty has a reputation for cheating (it comes with the territory of being such a hugely popular shooter and having a free-to-download battle royale). Cheating is more prevalent on PC (Activision recently confirmed as much, to the point where it said if you believe you’ve died unfairly to a console player, it’s much more likely that they’ve used ‘intel advantage’ than cheats). So, some console players head straight into Call of Duty’s settings to turn off crossplay across the board, just to take the potential for PC cheaters ruining their day out of the equation. With the launch of Season 3, Activision even added new console-only crossplay options for regular multiplayer, although PC players who do not cheat said they were being unfairly punished.
Activision, as IGN has reported, has spent millions of dollars in the battle against Call of Duty cheat makers, cheat sellers, and cheat users, with a number of recent high-profile successes. In March, Phantom Overlay announced it was shutting down, with fans reacting in disbelief that such a prominent Call of Duty cheat provider could fall by the wayside. Also in March, IGN reported on four cheat providers that were shut down ahead of the hotly anticipated return of Verdansk to Warzone.
This week, amid rising complaints about cheating across Warzone and Black Ops 6, Activision said it had shut down five more cheat makers since its last progress report (this is on top of the 20+ it’s shut down since Black Ops 6 came out last year), and had “disrupted” over 150 cheat sellers in the same period. Activision said it had also issued cease-and-desist demands to several companies that create and sell third-party hardware used to cheat in Call of Duty games, in a move widely believed to be targeting Cronus users.
A section of the lawsuit makes it clear why Activision takes Call of duty cheating so seriously: because it knows it can have a significant impact on its bottom line:
Activision works very hard to ensure that the COD Games offer consistently compelling player experiences so that customers will remain engaged in the COD Games, continue to play them for sustained periods of time, and be excited about future releases. If players perceive that a game is unfair or that the multiplayer experience is not working properly, including because others are cheating or disrupting and/or hacking multiplayer servers, players may grow frustrated with the COD Games, become less interested in playing and supporting them (including by purchasing new games and items) and may even stop playing entirely. Cheating and hacking therefore not only harms (and could even destroy) COD player communities, but also impacts Activision’s ability to offer the fast paced, stable, high-quality online gameplay millions of fans have come to expect from Activision and the COD Games.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
