The details:
- Analysis cited by Activision puts cheat subscriptions across just 15 games at roughly $3.5 billion per year. The broader $8.5 billion estimate adds adjacent services such as account sales, boosting, spoofing tools, and organised distribution networks. The 95% confidence range on the figure spans $5.1 billion to $13.8 billion, meaning it's a modelled estimate rather than a hard number.
- Activision says it has disrupted more than 375 reseller operations, issued more than 80 cease-and-desist demands, and helped shut down 31 primary cheat vendors. It also recently sent staff to Ohio to serve a cease-and-desist on a cheat seller called Elocarry during the Modern Warfare 4 closed beta, with bodycam footage posted publicly.
- The cost of cheating is rising for individual players too, Activision says: between cheat subscriptions (some costing $100+ per month on the high end), spoofer tools, and DMA hardware, some players are spending well over $1,000 a year just to cheat — and losing all of it when they're banned.
- Generative AI has added further complexity to the arms race, and Activision acknowledged that cheat makers use social media to mask downtime caused by detection with excuses like illness or accidents rather than admitting their tools have been compromised.
- Modern Warfare 4 launches October 22.
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