Michael Beckwith 
Call of Duty cheat maker Raging Nation has opted to shut down its services, with its website now only displaying a farewell message.
Season after season, cheating has been a problem in the Call of Duty games for years. Activision has routinely updated its anti-cheat software in order to combat this issue, and often permanently bans players it deems guilty of cheating. This past April, in a statement to CharlieIntel, Activision said it had banned over 58,000 accounts from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty: Warzone in a single day
Regardless, some players have continued to acquire cheats from sites like Raging Nation. Examples include aim bots that allow people to take out opponents without needing to manually aim their guns, and cheats that let players shoot through walls. Going forward, though, Raging Nation will no longer be selling such cheats.
Why did Call of Duty cheat maker Raging Nation shut down?
Raging Nation announced it has closed its business because of a legal notice sent by Activision to one of the site’s affiliates.
The contents of the notice haven’t been shared, but it was likely an ultimatum from the publisher. While Raging Nation has said it doesn’t agree with the assertions made by Activision, it also admitted it is not in a position to “litigate with a large company.” Raging Nation ended its message with a thank you to its community, adding this closure was “the last thing we wanted to have to do.”
It is still possible to access the old site and view its product page but prospective customers obviously can no longer purchase any products from the site. Aside from aimbots, these included cheats to unlock every item in Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone, as well as cheats for other online multiplayer games like Fortnite and Apex Legends.
It’s too soon to tell if this will lead to a significant drop in cheating activity in the Call of Duty games. After all, Raging Nation wasn’t the only cheat supplier for the series. However, it does appear Activision has decided its anti-cheat software and bans haven’t been enough.
Just a couple of months ago, the company won its legal battle with EngineOwning, another cheat maker. Aside from having to pay Activision over $14 million in damages, EngineOwning also had to hand over its domain name to the publisher. These results may well have played a crucial factor in Raging Nation’s decision to shut down. This has continued a trend by publishers of turning to their legal team when their anti-cheat developers don’t achieve the desired result.
It’s very likely it would have met a similar fate as EngineOwning if it went to court against Activision. The question is whether Activision’s legal team is big enough to do this with all the other cheat makers, and those who pop up to replace them.
