Activision is suing the creator of Call of Duty Hacker, which says it is so “toxic” that it causes fans to quit the PC version of Black Ops 6 completely

Activision is suing the people behind the well-known Call of Duty Hacker, which allegedly is so “toxic” that it has caused fans to stop playing the PC version of Black Ops 6.

The lawsuit was filed in Central California and examined by IGN, taking action against Lergware and Gamehook, two Call of Duty hacks that Activision tried to shut down for a while.

Both hackers include a custom set of “toxic” features, including other players who make users “kick” Activision's multiplayer server (sometimes called “angry” cheats) and even crashing the multiplayer server completely.

GameHook also lets players cheat using “Aimbot”, which causes weapons to automatically hit opponents and “ESP Bots” that recognize opponent positions and allow players to see in walls or other obstacles.

The Activision is called Ryan Rothholz, called Lerggy online, and was the original creator of Lergware. Activision claims that Rothholz of Antioch, Tennessee, developed and released Lergware in 2021 or 2022 and sold it through his website for $25. Then, in 2023, Rothholz allegedly updated Lergware to work with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone. “Updates have caused attacks by online players to become more frequent, causing some users to issue warning messages online,” Activision said.

In response, in June 2023, Activision sent a stop letter to Rothholz. To this end, Activision said Rothholz posted the letter to an online discord community specifically targeting Lergware and “publicly mocking Activision.”

Still, in late June, Rothholz agreed to comply with the ceasefire and defense, but then “just changed his online alias and distributed its source code to other video game hackers.”

Activision accused Rothholz of then creating a new Call of Duty hack, the alienated 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.

Activision says GameHook can be used in multiple Call of Duty games, including Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops Cold War and last year's Black Ops 6. Each GameHook makes the Call of Summoning games cost at least $50, with a lifetime access of $375, and can be used to use the Master Key to use all “Master Keys” that support all supported game call calls. Activision said it believes “hundreds, even thousands” bought the GameHook and used it to cheat in the Call of Duty game.

“Activation is noticed and believed and based on this, the defendants gained substantial income from their activities, thus damaging the event and its community of participants,” the lawsuit said.

Activision said it gave the defendants the opportunity to comply with its requirements without litigation, but “everyone ignored the publicity of Activision compared to Activision and therefore the lawsuit was required.”

For example, in March 2025, Activision sent a stop letter to Rothholz and other defendants, although when the online store was closed, no one confirmed that they would stop creating or selling Call of Duty hacks, and no one granted a copy of the GameHook source code to Activision.

Activision said it believes Rothholz, Gyetvai and Boothey are continuing to distribute or sell GameHook Hacks or other Call of Duty hacks through private channels or GameHook Discord Server.

Activision has reason to believe that Rothholz, Gyetvai and Boothey intend to use different online aliases to offer 'rebrand' hooks for Gamehook Cod hacks or similar cod hacks under different titles and to offer Gamehook Cod hacks or similar cod hacks. ”

“Activision attempted to informally engage with Rothholz, Gyetvai and Boothey, but they did not respond to Activision’s publicity. As a result, Activision had no choice but to file this lawsuit.”

Activision requires monetary losses, injunctions and other fair relief, and punitive damages to the defendants. It says the losses could reach millions of dollars.

“The defendant's actions hurt Activision's reputation and lead to the goodwill of a large number of customers,” Activision said. “In fact, GameHook was so frustrated with CoD players that it received a lot of attention on social media, and in terms of information and beliefs, it caused players to stop playing or avoid the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops: Black Ops 6..”

Call of Duty is famous for cheating (it's such a popular shooter and has a free download of battle battles). Cheating is more common on PCs (Active has confirmed so much recently that If you think you've died unfairly against the console player, they're more likely to use “Intel Advantages” than cheating). So some console players go straight into Call of Duty settings to turn off the cross-game of the entire table, just to make PC scammers ruin their day. With the release of Season 3, Activision even adds to regular multiplayer games Although PC players who don't cheat say they're punished unfairly.

As IGN reported Many highly anticipated successes recently. March, Phantom Overlay announces closingwith fans incredible that such an important duty cheating provider may fall on the roadside. Also in March IGN reports four shuttered cheating providers Front Verdansk's highly anticipated return.

This week, there has been a rise in complaints about cheating in Warzone and Black Ops 6 Activision says it has shut down five cheaters since the last progress report (This is at the top of the 20s and over, since the Black Ops 6 appeared last year) and has “breaked” more than 150 cheaters during the same period. Activision said it also issued a stop and phase-out requirement to several companies that created and sold third-party hardware for cheating in Call of Duty games as widely believed to be a step towards Cronus users.

Part of the lawsuit clearly shows why Activision takes responsibility cheating so seriously: because it knows it will have a significant impact on its bottom line:

Activision works very hard to ensure COD Games provides a consistently compelling player experience so that customers will continue to participate in COD games, continue to play games for a continuous period of time, and are excited about future releases. If players think the game is unfair or the multiplayer experience is abnormal, including because others are cheating or destroying and/or hacking multiplayer servers, players may be frustrated with Cod Games, have a lower interest in playing the game, including by purchasing new games and projects), and may even stop playing the game altogether. So cheating and hacking not only hurts (and may even undermine) the COD Player community, but also affects Activision’s ability to provide fast-paced, stable, high-quality online gameplay that millions of fans expect from Activision and Cod Games.

Wesley is the UK news editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter via @wyp100. You can reach Wesley via [email protected] or secretly visit [email protected].