Cheating continues to be a major issue in Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare. In a recent exchange between a hacker and TimTheTatman, the hacker revealed that he has been cheating for six months on an account that already had damascus skins unlocked on it before he started hacking. That shows not only that a hacker can be active for a long time without any repercussions, but also that many cheaters have little to no reason to fear having their accounts banned, even if they have been grinding on them for months.
There are a few reasons for blatant, brazen hacking, but no matter what it is high time that more focused efforts are made to prevent it. Even after the most recent wave of bans in Modern Warfare and Warzone, including soft bans and new requirements for dual-factor authentication, cheating persists. While cheating will always be present in online games, it is the responsibility of the developer to prevent cheaters from ruining the experience for everyone else when it hits a certain threshold. In Call of Duty, many players feel that threshold has been surpassed time and again. Here's a few reasons, though, why cheaters may not be afraid.
Cheap Call of Duty Accounts
The first reason that many cheaters aren't worried about being banned is simple: getting a secondary accounts in Modern Warfare and Warzone can be incredibly cheap. Often, legitimate accounts that have been hacked and password-changed are sold online, and new accounts obtained through unscrupulous means can be bought for as low as $2 from shady vendors on the internet. Burner accounts can even be bought in bulk, all linked to the same email address, making it exceedingly easy to try out hacks without fearing a ban.
For players who can't be bothered to unlock Damascus skins themselves, accounts with Damascus already unlocked can be bought too. While most players might not see the point in skipping all the work, some people just want to spend cold hard cash to look like a winner. Some high-end hacks for Modern Warfare and Warzone can cost hundreds of dollars, so buying a few extra accounts is usually chump change for those who are willing to spend that kind of money on cheating.
While some players are happy to spend their money on cosmetics or new games, others have different motives and take pleasure in unfairly dominating hapless players online. The motivation to cheat is still largely a mystery to most honest players, but there are even some streamers who have been caught cheating. Whether it's trying out hacks after unlocking all the skins and getting bored with the game, trying to build a YouTube audience by fooling viewers, or just getting sick of losing all the time, some players seemingly think its fine to ruin the game for others to get what they want.
A Hacking Arms Race
The second major reason that hacking persists is that there is a constant arms race between developers and hackers to fix and break the game, respectively.People who can figure out how to mod, exploit, and downright hack the game can sell their cheat software online for money, giving them plenty of motivation to keep coming up with new ways to meddle with the game's code. Developers have to constantly update their detection software and anti-cheat measures, but it can be a major challenge to keep up with all of the cunning miscreants out there who stand to make a profit by breaking the game.
Currently, it seems like the hackers are able to skirt the barriers put in place by Modern Warfare and Warzone quite handily. Top hacking sites offer monthly access, multi-layered cheats with constant updates, active support staff, and boast tens of thousands of users. These high-end, expensive hacks often claim to be able to go undetected, nullifying report systems or disabling anti-cheat measures. Whether or not it's true is determined at the risk of the buyer, but if hackers like the one that TimTheTatman spoke to are any indication, there are plenty of cheats that simply aren't detected by the current solutions Modern Warfare and Warzone are using.
Unreliable Reporting and Bans
Up until now, the reasons discussed here for rampant hacking in Modern Warfare and Warzone have not been the fault of the developer. People with weak passwords on their accounts are liable to have them stolen and sold away online, and it is obviously no issue to make new accounts for a free to play game like Warzone. Keeping up with hackers is the responsibility of any game dev, but with dedicated teams of hackers making thousands of dollars to break the game, it would take a massive investment even for a huge company like Activision to fully put a stop to it.
However, there is one area that could easily be improved. The reporting system in Modern Warfare and Warzone doesn't seem to do anything. Many issues with toxicity, hacking, and exploiting could be dealt with if reports were taken more seriously. On the other side of the equation, the bans that do take place are infrequent and often unreliable. Banning accounts does deter hackers who don't want to see their purchase of expensive hacks go down the drain, and up until now the ban waves have been too few and far between.
To make things even worse, the most recent wave of bans saw many players who were apparently completely innocent get their accounts suspended, and the developers had to go so far as to reverse many of the bans they doled out. It's one thing to be unable to catch cheaters, but punishing players who haven't cheated makes things all the worse and allows cheaters to do what they do with even more confidence. Hopefully some major updates will take place that tackle cheats and exploits effectively, even if it means delaying a few new operators or cosmetics to focus on tightening up security. Perhaps then, the cheaters will start scurrying.
Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare are available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
