I know that there is no way for studios to stop someone from creating third party bots aka "cheats" and modified clients and aimbots for their games.
I am wondering about legal issues if it was sold commercially?

Because I remember in a game I played before they were actually competing trying to make better bots than everyone else so people would buy the bots... and the Games DEVs couldn't stop them in anyway... they had a website and sold the bots officially and publicly for the game even though the games DEVs hated them for that.

I just haven't seen this done in any other games than that one... in all other games they bots have never been sold commercially.

Depends on your location, depends on exactly what you did to create it.

You can absolutely expect some legal action to be taken against you. Count on facing an expensive legal battle.

Plan on accepting an affirmative defense, essentially claiming that you would be guilty but it is legal.

Expect to spend 5 years in court, praying that a few lines it cases like Lexmark v. SCC will hold in your favor.

Can you afford to fight the battle?


If you want to look at similar cases, consider the various cheat tools back in Nintendo's NES heyday; cheat cartridges fought a long and expensive legal battle before settling and establishing a precedent.

The latest incantation of it would probably be Blizzard vs Bossland (Honorbuddy), which has been going on for a year or so, and it looks like it's getting more expensive weekly.The previous one (I forgot the company's name) ended with the company shutting down after 3 or so years of trials and losing.

What kind of cheats are legal to sell and which are not?
It must be a third party cheat and the name can't have any words from the game it's made for... for example WoW Glider?
What about selling a heavily modified client? This sounds more illegal but then again.. isn't this what some emulators do?

And what is an estimate of how much it costs if they take you to court? Per time? and how often?
And what happens if you lose? Just stop selling the cheat or pay money to the winners too?

Edit: And what if you take the money via donations? if they pay you thru donations then is it still counted as commercial?

1, What kind of cheats are legal to sell and which are not?
2. It must be a third party cheat and the name can't have any words from the game it's made for... for example WoW Glider?
3. What about selling a heavily modified client? This sounds more illegal but then again.. isn't this what some emulators do?
4. And what is an estimate of how much it costs if they take you to court? Per time? and how often?
5. And what happens if you lose? Just stop selling the cheat or pay money to the winners too?
6. And what if you take the money via donations? if they pay you thru donations then is it still counted as commercial?

1. Ask your lawyer for details. Depending on your location on the globe and the location of the company, it is possible ANY form of reverse engineering is unlawful; the fact that you reverse engineered enough to generate a cheat is de facto evidence of unlawful behavior, and the product is unlawfully gained. In other places particular uses are exempted from reverse engineering laws, so you would need an affirmative defense; that is, saying you did it but it was legal. In a few places of the world (probably not where you live) there are no restrictions at all.

2. If you use the name of a product, that would be a trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and several other trademark-related violations.

3. A modified client is derived from the original client. Copyright law mostly applies; you have created a derivative work without the right to do so. Many other IP rights would also be violated, but the copyright violations have a pretty steep fine by themselves.

4. It costs whatever your lawyers charge. Civil defense cases are expensive; be prepared for several hundred dollars per hour per lawyer that you spend face-to-face, since the lawyer has significant work to do when you are not face-to-face.

5. If you lose it depends on what the judge tells you, and exactly what you lost. If you lost to a copyright claim, statutory damages can easily reach into the millions of dollars if your product were popular enough.

6. If you accept money you are definitely a commercial venture. You can be a commercial venture even without accepting money.

It's just so weird because I found this website: damncheaters.com
And they are SELLING cheats to lots of bigtime games.

Shouldn't they be bombarded with lawsuits from all the rich studios?

It's just so weird because I found this website: damncheaters.com
And they are SELLING cheats to lots of bigtime games.

Shouldn't they be bombarded with lawsuits from all the rich studios?

I just had an idea why it's ok for them to sell cheats..

Because they have all the cheat programs on a main program... sort of like how steam works... you have steam... and on it all the games.
To use this program you need to pay money.. and if you do that then you have access to all the game hacks that are on it.

So your're really selling the "steam program" where the "games" aka cheats are on but you don't sell the games just "steam".

I just had an idea why it's ok for them to sell cheats..[/quote]If you read Blizzard vs MDY Industries, Mr. Donnelly was (among half a dozen other verdicts) accused of tortious interference. Which, in layman English, means as much as "convinced players to cheat (and break the ToS)". That's just what "selling cheats" is.

The fact that some site on the internet has not been taken down and the site owners have not been ruled to pay 6 million dollars in damages does not mean "it's ok". It just means that either nobody has bothered yet or they don't look like they have enough money and aren't big enough to be worth the hassle.

The same is true for a thousand clones of existing games, some of which even have the original title's name in theirs. Many of them "are ok" as you say, because nobody cares. Others (e.g. pretty much everyone who wrote a Tetris clone) lost their last shirt over it.

And no, there is no precedence case for you. You can still lose your last shirt while the owners of damncheaters.com did the same before you and continue doing it afterwards, You may get away, and you may be burned on the stake. Nothing you argue about it will change anything, and nothing someone on this forum can tell you (except: don't do it) will help you.