Niantic Wins $5 Million USD Legal Settlement Against 'Pokémon GO' Hackers
The hackers created various cheats including the “auto-walk” function.
Niantic has just won a $5 million USD settlement during its lawsuit against a group of hackers which created a number of cheats for its massively popular mobile game Pokémon GO, as well as Ingress and Harry Potter Wizards Unite.
The hacker group, named Global++, was found to be in contravention of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and had infringed on Niantic’s copyright by creating three “tweaked” versions of its games: PokeGo++, Ingress++ and Potter++. All three of the hacked versions allowed players to use various cheats, including GPS manipulation to allow for an “auto-walk” function.
The final judgment over the settlement was issued by the California district court on Tuesday, which — on top of the $5 million USD payment in damages — also subjects Global++ to a permanent injunction, banning the hackers from making cheats for the game, selling things using Niantic’s coding, and interfering with the gaming company’s titles or servers.
In other related news, Pokémon GO made $1.92 billion USD in revenue over 2020.
