Activision is suing the people behind the well-known Call of Duty Hack.
The lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California and viewed by Passthecontroller, takes action against two Call of Duty Hacks, Lergware and Gamehook, which Activision has been trying to close for a while.
Both hacks include a set of self-title “toxic” features, including the ability to “kick” other players on Activision’s multiplayer server (sometimes called “anger” cheats).
GameHook also uses “Aimbots” to cheate players. This will automatically cause the weapon to collide with your opponent, allowing the “ESP bot” to identify the opponent’s location and allow players to see walls and other obstacles.
Activision is known as Ryan Rothholz, known online as Lerggy, and is known as the original creator of Lergware in the lawsuit. Activision claimed that Rothholz of Antioch, Tennessee developed and released Lergware in 2021 or 2022, selling it on his website for $25. Then, in 2023, Rothholz is said to have updated Lergware to work with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone. “This update has made online players ‘attacks’ more and more frequent, with some users posting warning messages online,” Activision said.
In response, in June 2023, Activation sent a letter to Rothholz, supposed to be stopped. In response, Activision posted a letter to Rothholz’s discrepancies online, dedicated to Leergwear and “Openly Ocked Activision.”
Still, in the second half of June, Rothholz agreed to follow the suspension and decision, but “changed his online alias and distributed the source code to other video game hackers.”
Activision has subsequently accused Rosholz of recruiting new Call of Duty Hack, the aforementioned Gamehook, and others appointed in the lawsuit: Collin Gyetvai (“CID”), Carbondale, Pennsylvania, and Jordan Newcomb Bootte (“Bossignnight55”), why “Resellers”
GameHook is now available on several Call of Duty Games, Activision said, including Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops Cold Wars and last year’s Black Ops 6, Gamehook will use all Gamehook versions for all supported Call of Call games for at least $50 per Call of Duty game and $375 for “master keys.” Activision believes that “if not thousands, if not thousands” people bought GameHook and used it to cheat on Call of Duty Games.
“Activision has been notified and believes and based on that, the defendant alleges that he has earned significant income from the damages of Activision and its player community,” the lawsuit alleges.
Activision gave the defendants the opportunity to comply with their request without litigation, but said “as opposed to being involved in Activision, each ignores Activision’s outreach and requires this lawsuit.”
For example, in March 2025, Activision sent a suspended and assumed letter to Rothholz and the other defendants, and no one confirmed that they would stop creating or selling Call of Duty hacks while the online storefront was closed.
Activision believes that Rothholz, Gyetvai, and Boothey continue to distribute or sell GameHook hacks or other Call of Duty hacks via private channels or GameHook Discord Server.
“Additionally, Activision has reason to believe that Rothholz, Gyetvai, and Boothey “brand” Gamehook and intends to provide GameHook COD Hacks or similar COD hacks with different online aliases,” he allegedly said.
“Activision has tried to unofficially reach out to Rosholz, gyetvai and Boothey, but has not responded to Activision’s outreach. Therefore, Activision had no choice but to file this lawsuit.”
Activision wants financial damages, injunctions and other fair relief, and punitive damages against the defendant. He said the damage could be millions of dollars.
“The defendant’s actions harm the reputation of Activity and lead to the loss of the goodwill of the client,” Activision said. “In fact, GameHook is so frustrated with COD players that it has attracted a lot of attention on social media, and for information and beliefs, players have been avoiding the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.”
Call of Duty has a reputation for cheating (it’s a very popular shooter game and comes with the territory that it has a Battle Royale that can be downloaded for free). Fraud is more common on PCs (Activision has been recently confirmed, up to what it said If you think the console player has died unfairly, you are much more likely to have used “Intel Advantage” than a cheat). So some console players head directly into Call of Duty settings and turn off cross-play across the board to take the chance that PC scammers will ruin the day from the equation. With the release of Season 3, Activision has added a new console-only cross-play option for regular multiplayer. PC players who don’t cheat said they were being punished unfairly.
Activision, as reported by Passthecontroller, spent millions of dollars fighting Call of Duty Cheat makers, cheat sellers and cheat users. Many famous successes these days. March, Phantom Overlay announced it is shutting downfans have reacted to believe such a well-known Call of Duty cheat provider could fall on the roadside. Even in March Passthecontroller reported on four closed cheat providers in front of It was hoped that Verdansk would return to Warzone.
This week amid rising complaints about Warzone and Black Ops 6 fraud, Activision said it has shut down five more cheat makers since its final progress report (this is on top of 20+, shutting down since Black Ops 6 was launched last year, and “smashing” over 150 cheat sellers in the same period. Activision said it has issued a suspension and assumption request to several companies that are widely believed to target Cronus users.
The litigation section makes clear why Activision takes Call of Duty’s misconduct seriously.
Activision works very hard to ensure that COD games deliver a consistently compelling player experience, ensuring that customers continue to engage in COD games, continue to play them for a sustained period of time, and get excited about future releases. If the player perceives the game to be unfair or that the multiplayer experience is not working properly, then the player may become unhappy with the Tara game, as others are cheating, confusing, or hacking the multiplayer server, and may even stop playing completely (because they are no longer interested in purchasing and supporting new games or items). Therefore, cheating and hacking not only harms (and can even destroy) the COD player community, but also affects Activision’s ability to provide Activision’s fast, stable, high-quality online gameplay.
Wesley is the UK news editor at Passthecontroller. Find him on @wyp100’s Twitter. You can contact Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
