Tencent and Chinese Authorities Take Down "Worlds Largest" Cheat Makers

Cheaters never prosper, or so they say, but a raid by Chinese authorities — with help from gaming mega-company Tencent -- on a company that’s allegedly the “world’s largest” producer of video game cheating software certainly suggests otherwise. This raid, which was reported on by the BBC, was done against a group called “Chicken Drumstick”, which managed to get millions of dollars by selling cheats for games like Overwatch and Call of Duty, which users could subscribe to for as little as ten dollars a day, or up to 200 dollars a month.

Apparently, this company was able to raise 76 million dollars using this business model, and the Chinese government has apparently confiscated assets that add up to over 46 million dollars, which includes a fleet of luxury cars. They also arrested 17 people, and destroyed the 10 cheats that they had produced.

Now, I’m no fan of cheaters, and there’s a part of me that’s happy this cheating software is off the market, even if their claims that these people are the “world's largest” producers of cheats strikes me as a bit dubious. But there’s a bigger part of me that’s uncomfortable with the criminalization of these people. Sure, they should be banned and their software should be shut down, but… arrested? Did they actually break any laws? Or is this an example of a company (in this case, Tencent) using its power and money to influence the government to act in an area where it should have no legislation? I don’t know what kind of laws exist in China, but it feels gross.

For what it’s worth, the USA has, in fact, jailed hackers and cheaters in the past, but certainly never to this scale. And while I will always support efforts to crack down on cheaters, well… I hope things don’t get to this extreme. And I hope the fellows that were arrested here get off relatively easily, because while I think what they did was gross… it wasn’t, like, illegal gross, you know? There’s a difference.

There should be a difference.