Activision serves cease and desist to infamous Call of Duty cheat maker—and films the whole thing: ‘We will find you’

Activision has employed many different tactics in its unending battle against cheating in Call of Duty, from suing cheat makers for millions of dollars to employing complex technical solutions to ban cheaters as quickly as possible. In its latest gambit, Activision served cease-and-desist papers to one especially infamous Call of Duty cheat maker, filmed the entire exchange, and posted it online.

On Friday, a video appeared on the official Call of Duty X account (via Kotaku) showing a legal representative arriving at the home of Elocarry—a cheat maker who creates exploits for games like Rust and Apex Legends alongside Call of Duty—walking up to his front door and serving him a cease and desist order.

Now, if you’re expecting some Dog the Bounty Hunter level of reality TV drama, expect to be disappointed. The whole exchange between Elocarry and the legal representative is brief and civil—pretty much “Hello. Here are your papers. Goodbye.” The most interesting part occurs when the representative explains the papers are cease-and-desist orders, and Elocarry asks “What’s that?”, after which the representative suggests Elocarry call the relevant attorney’s office.

Clearly though, the objective here is to serve a broader warning to Call of Duty cheaters. That not only will the publisher come after you legally, that it will also do so publicly and for the whole world to see. In a follow-up post, Activision says that it served 80 such cease-and-desist letters in its fight against cheat makers, disrupting 375 reseller operations and shutting down 30 vendors entirely.

Regarding Elocarry specifically, the cease-and-desist order appears to have had an effect. Further down the thread, the Call of Duty X account posted a screenshot from Elocarry’s discord which states he has “temporarily paused sales” of Call of Duty cheats as he “review[s] a matter internally”.

Activision also took the opportunity to discuss how these anti-cheat efforts are being carried forward into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. In another post in the thread, Activision stated that during last weekend’s beta test “infection rates were lower, hardware bans were harder to evade and our time to action improved.” Sadly, Activision didn’t go into much more detail than this. But the publisher certainly seems keen to let players know how seriously it is taking cheating.

Modern Warfare 4’s second beta weekend is currently ongoing, and unlike the first beta weekend is open to all players. Alongside the standard multiplayer test, players can also try a mission from the campaign and drop into Warzone for a bout of battle royale. PC Gamer’s Morgan Park got hands-on with Modern Warfare 4 earlier in the year, coming away impressed by the level of detail on show, but unconvinced by its maps.