Destiny 2 developer Bungie has gone to trial against cheating software creator and distributor AimJunkies and comes nearly three years after the initial lawsuit was filed in a Seattle court.
The lawsuit was filed by Bungie lead attorney Jacob Dini and it has been a long and complicated journey up to this point. AimJunkies, which is owned by Phoenix Digital Group, countersued the video game developer in 2022.
Bungie Goes to Trial Against AimJunkies
(Photo : Bungie / Screenshot taken from official website)
In it, they claimed that the Sony-owned company had illegally accessed James May's computer and accessed his copyrighted material. May is a defendant who is accused of hacking into Destiny 2 to copy its code to create the cheating software that AimJunkies sold.
In 2023, parts of the lawsuit, which include anti-circumvention and trafficking violations, were resolved in arbitration and resulted in Bungie winning $4.3 million.
A few months after, AimJunkies filed to appeal the decision, arguing that the arbitrator "blatantly disregarded some rules in making his decision," according to Polygon.
The two parties are now in court this week to settle the claim that the cheating software creator and distributor violated Bungie's copyright. On Monday, opening statements began after eight jurors were selected for the trial.
Lawyers said that this is probably the first time that a video game cheating lawsuit has made it this far in the court system. What is worth noting is that cheating is not explicitly against United States law.
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The arbiter previously determined that AimJunkies violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention rules by bypassing Bungie's security measures and by trafficking or selling software that was designed to circumvent those measures.
The latest development comes as in February last year, a judge agreed that AimJunkies was guilty and was ordered to pay more than $3.6 million in damages and $700,000 in legal expenses, said Kotaku.
Hidden Sales and Transactions
But now, lawyers representing Bungie are blaming May and the company also said that he split the revenue with Phoenix Digital's Jeffrey Conway and Jordan Green. The company reportedly found that Phoenix Digital paid May "more than $700,000 for his work."
However, the sales records that Phoenix Digital provided only documented $43,000 in sales and Bungie's lawyers claim that they deleted cryptocurrency and other transactions. This is the reason why they are now asking the jury to consider "spoliation of evidence."
This would mean that the video game studio's lawyers are requesting that the jury in charge of the case presume that the defendants destroyed evidence that might incriminate them. The evidence supposedly includes forum messages, records of the cheat software, and sales information.
On the other hand, lawyer Philip P. Mann said that May did not create the Destiny 2 cheat and that Bungie had subjected Phoenix Digital founder David Schaefer to 16 hours of questioning. This was allegedly done to find out who the company thinks is behind the international conspiracy to develop cheats.
Schaefer's conduct was also a factor in the previous amount that was awarded to Bungie. In a statement, arbitration Judge Ronald Cox said that the respondents' "egregious and willful conduct, including their ongoing concealment of sales," according to Engadget.
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