In case you hadn’t heard, Apex Legends is big news right now, but not always for the right reasons. It’s a tale as old as the games industry itself so it should come as little surprise, but Respawn Entertainment is currently in the midst of a battle with cheaters looking for an easy path to victory.
Just the other week, the developer announced that it had already banned in excess of 300,000 players for cheating in the first month of release. With more than 50 million recorded users, that figure may appear to be a drop in the ocean, but the problem of where such offenders are getting their hands on hacks and aimbot software remains.
A recent article published by Kotaku, however, has shed some light on the matter, with the site having made contact with two such individuals responsible for creating the frowned-upon programs. Going by the alias of Dev, one such cheat-maker described how prior to focusing on Apex Legends, he had been working on illicit Fortnite content. He describes how Epic Games’ progressive investment in anti-cheating technology for its own battle royale game and pursual of offenders with legal battles eventually deterred him and other cheat-makers from continuing, resulting in the move over to Apex Legends. According to Dev, in the four days since opening for business, he’s made around $5,000, claims corroborated via screenshots, says Kotaku.
Without concrete figures, it’s impossible to discern just how many cheat-makers like Dev are piggybacking off of Apex Legends‘ success, but he’s certainly not alone in the business. Kotaku makes mention of another cheat-seller, Adam (not real name), who claims to have made $400 by selling similar cheats to players. Entrepreneurial acumen it might exhibit, but Respawn will clearly be unhappy with how easily certain individuals are able to exploit its intellectual property for profit and really, its best course of action will likely be to mimic Epic’s efforts to tackle the problem.
The biggest hurdle it’ll have to overcome, however, is that Apex Legends is currently wholly free-to-play. If cheaters are caught and subsequently banned, there’s currently nothing to stop them creating a new account and jumping straight back in. With any luck, the arrival of the shooter’s paid-for Battle Pass will act as a natural deterrent to prospective cheaters, but only time will tell.