Activision estimates the Call of Duty cheat market at $8.5 billion a year
Activision says videogame cheating has grown into an $8.5 billion annual market and details new RICOCHET actions against cheat sellers.
The company also says cheat subscriptions across 15 games generate about £2.6 billion ($3.5 billion), and that some players spend more than £750 ($1,000) a year on cheats and tools.
According to Activision, RICOCHET Anti-Cheat has disrupted more than 375 reseller operations, sent over 80 cease-and-desist requests and shut down 31 primary cheat vendors.
What happened
Activision published an update on 28 August 2026 through the official Call of Duty account about RICOCHET Anti-Cheat. In that post, the company said the fight against cheats does not end after a match and that it is targeting cheat sellers directly. The official account tied that message to a specific action in Ohio during the Closed Beta weekend, where Elocarry was targeted. The available source does not mention further technical details, an arrest or any legal outcome from that action.
Eurogamer also reported that Activision estimates the global cheat market at £6.3 billion ($8.5 billion) a year. The company links that figure to account sales, boosting and spoofing, but the calculation itself is not broken down in the supplied sources. In the same explanation, Activision says cheat subscriptions across 15 games generate about £2.6 billion ($3.5 billion). That makes clear the company is looking beyond Call of Duty and at a broader market for game cheats and related services.
Activision also says it has disrupted more than 375 reseller operations, sent more than 80 cease-and-desist requests and shut down 31 primary cheat vendors. The company further describes how sellers allegedly react when their products are detected: according to its own observations, they may blame outages on excuses such as illness, surgery or a car crash, before later admitting the cheats no longer work. That passage comes from Activision’s own framing and is not independently confirmed in the supplied sources.
The update fits into RICOCHET’s wider anti-cheat approach, which Activision presents as a mix of technical detection and legal pressure on sellers and resellers. The figures in the post are company claims and are not independently verified in the supplied sources. It also remains unclear how Activision arrived at the £6.3 billion ($8.5 billion) estimate and what role the Ohio action against Elocarry plays within the broader enforcement effort.
Timeline
28 August 2026: The official Call of Duty account posts about RICOCHET Anti-Cheat and says the team acted against Elocarry in Ohio during the Closed Beta weekend.
28 August 2026: Eurogamer publishes a report saying Activision estimates the cheat market at £6.3 billion ($8.5 billion) per year and cites the reseller, cease-and-desist and vendor shutdown figures.
28 August 2026: In the same coverage, Activision says cheat subscriptions across 15 games generate about £2.6 billion ($3.5 billion).
20 September 2026: The supplied source set includes a later date reference for this file, without any additional verifiable event in the available material.
Background
RICOCHET Anti-Cheat is Activision’s anti-cheat system for Call of Duty. The company presents the effort as a combination of technical detection and legal action against cheat sellers and resellers. In the supplied sources, that approach is explicitly linked to targeting primary vendors, resale networks and individual operations that Activision says are part of a larger commercial chain.
The figures and counts mentioned are company claims. The sources do say Activision breaks the market into categories such as account sales, boosting and spoofing, but they do not provide a full methodological breakdown of the £6.3 billion ($8.5 billion). It is also unclear whether the £2.6 billion ($3.5 billion) for subscriptions across 15 games is a subset of the same market or a separate calculation within Activision’s internal analysis.
The update also shows that Activision frames its anti-cheat campaign not just as a technical battle, but as a global enforcement operation. The reference to more than 375 disrupted reseller operations and more than 80 cease-and-desist requests suggests a long-running campaign, but the supplied sources do not specify the period over which those actions were collected. Nor is it clear how widely the 31 closed primary vendors are spread across games, regions or platforms.
The source set also includes a separate Call of Duty topic about matchmaking. Call of Duty YouTuber Tdawgsmitty launched a petition to remove skill-based matchmaking from unranked Call of Duty lobbies, inspired by recent Destiny protests that he viewed as successful. According to the available reporting, the petition had more than 500 signatures shortly after launch. There is no evidence in the supplied sources that Activision has responded to it yet or that it has led to any policy change.
Related GAME-scanner articles
Sources
- Eurogamer: Activision estimates the cheat market at £6.3 billion ($8.5 billion) per year.
- Official Call of Duty account on X/Twitter: post from 28 August 2026 about RICOCHET Anti-Cheat and Elocarry in Ohio.