Rockstar owners sued for selling hacked GTA online accounts and currencies
Blog Andrew Joseph 11 Mar , 2025 0
Rockstar owner Take-Two Interactive is suing online market games and accusing it of containing “a list of thousands of unauthorized, infringing GTA V content, including heavily modified player accounts, in-game assets and virtual currencies – all obtained through the use of hacking software, cheating and technology exploitation.”
The lawsuit was filed last week in the U.S. Central Court of California, which filed a lawsuit against a Chinese company that owns the website Paiao Network Technology. It accused Playerauct of being involved in “completely aware that its sellers engage in rampant infringement and other unauthorized conduct while “acquiring millions of dollars in revenue by cutting every transaction in its market.”
Specifically, Take-Two claims Playerauctions hosts a modified list of accounts that are manipulated to provide high game levels and game currency, or to content that is usually unlocked through games or purchases. Take-Two also claims Playerauctions sells currency drop services that use hacking software to work to make purchases of players’ in-game funds and to increase the account’s services, where sellers use hacking software or failures to overstate the in-game or currency level or total currency of players’ purchases.
Take-Two further argues that a refund can be provided from the seller if a hacker account purchased after the purchase is captured and banned from the purchase. According to the complaint, Take-Two “confronts evidence of the violation repeatedly” and issued a stop and stop, but Playerauction refused to close the list.
GTA publishers require relief from multiple types and levels of copyright infringement and intentional interference with the contract. Take-Two is seeking a permanent ban on Playerauctions, from continuing or indirectly selling any account, currency or item with two matches, or participating in or assisting hacker attacks or infringing on GTA trademarks. Trademark infringement, costs and attorney fees, damages and compensation also see losses.
Take-Two is not the only company after Playerauctions. Early last month, Roblox filed a similar lawsuit in the Northern District of California, involving roughly the same charges, attempts to stop and stop, demand and pray for relief. It is worth noting that Playerauctions offers similar sales and services in many other games, including World of Warcraft, Genshin Impact, Valort, Exile Road, Final Fantasy 14, Dutase Call of Duty, and Fortnite. Overall, Playeraucts claims to sell various boosts, items and benefits over 200 games.
While the Take-Two lawsuit is still early in the process, the Roblox case will hold its first hearing on March 20 in Oakland, California, where Roblox is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent Playeraucts from selling Roblox-related products and services when earnings are made.
The lawsuit comes ahead of the launch of GTA 6 in Fall 2025 Recently reiterated. Hopefully, of course, is that any new version of GTA online launched with GTA 6 will be as scammer-free as possible, and the lawsuit may take some way to help.
We have more on GTA 6, including Take-Two Boss Strauss Zelnick's response to GTA's online fate after GTA 6's appearance.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior journalist at IGN. You can find her post on bluesky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Is there a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
