Destiny 2’s top lawyer declares war on cheaters and harassment – It’s “a good deal”

Every player in Destiny 2 knows it. Those who log into the crucible now have to deal with annoying cheaters more often. And otherwise there is a rough tone in the community, which includes everything from harassment to defamation and hatred. But now the developer of the space shooter is adopting a much more aggressive tone. Bungie’s top attorney Don McGowan explains why.

What’s going on in Destiny 2 right now? In the past few months, Destiny 2 has repeatedly had trouble with cheaters, cheat providers, copyright pranksters, or players who actively insulted and threatened both Bungie and other players.

Bungie followed all of this with an unprecedented wave of lawsuits and drastically restricted communication with players until further notice.

• In August 2021, Bungie, together with Ubisoft, sued the aimbot and ESP cheat maker Ring-1. However, the lawsuit is still ongoing and the cheats are still available.
• In March 2022, 96 false takedown ads resulted in YouTube strikes for popular Destiny streamers. Blame it on Nicholas Minor, aka LordNazo, who wanted revenge on Bungie for his own ban. As a result, Destiny’s lawyers sued him for €7.5 million in damages. The procedure is still ongoing.
• In April 2022 it was the turn of the next cheat provider. With AimJunkies, however, Bungie recently suffered a small defeat. This could lead to an out-of-court settlement. At the moment, AimJunkies no longer offers cheats for Destiny 2.
• In June 2022, Bungie wins its lawsuit against cheater Elite Boss Tech and gets 13 million euros from copyright infringement for “unlicensed derivatives”.
• And in July 2022, for the first time, Bungie is directly suing a player for serial cheating and hate speech. He expects 2500 euros in damages for each case in which Luca Leone alias “MiffysWorld” used cheat software in Destiny 2. Or, alternatively, claim approximately $150,000 “for each copyrighted work infringed” from Bungie.

Behind many of these lawsuits is Bungie’s top attorney, Don McGowan. He is Bungie’s General Counsel and thus the official, external legal advisor to the shooter studio. Prior to that, he worked for Pokémon GO and oversaw Bungie’s spin-off from Microsoft Game Studio.

With axios the lawyer has now spoken about this quite new and aggressive legal tactic for Bungie and explains that they want to better protect honest players in the future.

Bungie will be more aggressive against cheaters and haters

In Bungie’s attorney’s opinion, potential scammers and haters have been tolerated for far too long. That is why a “strategic advance” will now be undertaken.

Often the skills and power to counteract this are there among developers, he explains, but efforts are unfortunately not focused enough on them.

This is an issue affecting many studios across the industry and addressing it is vital to maintaining a healthy and happy community wanting to play your game. Many game companies may avoid filing lawsuits because they don’t believe they can identify anonymous online offenders or don’t believe they can recover the costs of prosecuting “cheaters, abusers, and abusers.”

To put it simply, we disagree.

explains Bungie’s attorney Don McGowan

That will change now: Bungie will adopt a tougher stance going forward as part of its new “legal strategy to improve the community around its games.” On the one hand, so that the players can feel safe again and on the other hand, so that Bungie employees can go about their work again without being verbally abused, threatened or harassed.

Suing cheaters and haters is “good business”

Bungie’s lawyer also openly admits in this context that he sees it as “a good deal”. The entry in the lawsuit against Nicholas Minor shows how serious he is.

“Anyone foolish enough to volunteer to be a defendant and attack the Bungie community will face serious consequences.”

Whether Bungie can win with it, only time will tell. But it’s also clear that many Destiny 2 players don’t want to be in a community where cheating or harassment is normal.

What do you think of Bungie’s aggressive push? Do you think this is the right way and in the interests of the players or do you think Bungie needs other approaches as well. Please let us know what you think in the comments and tell us: do you feel comfortable in the current Destiny 2 community?