Grand Theft Auto cheater ordered to pay £115,000 after being sued by game makers
Take-Two claims Jhonny Perez' cheat tool, which he sold for £23, cost them around £400,000 in lost earnings and caused 'irreparable damage'
A COURT has ordered a gamer in Florida to pay the makers of Grand Theft Auto V £115,000 for making and selling a tool that let players of the hit game cheat.
Known as Elusive, Jhonny Perez' tool "creates new features and elements in Grand Theft Auto which can be used to harm legitimate players", according to the judge who handed down the judgment.
Among other things it let players generate free in-game cash, which normally needs to be either earned over time in the game, or bought from developer Rockstar with real money outside of it.
Jhonny Perez was found to be guilty of "both willful direct and willful contributory copyright infringement" .
He was ordered to pay a $150,000 fine plus $68,868 in lawyers' fees -- totalling around £170,000.
The case kicked off last year when Take Two contacted Perez, who immediately stopped distributing the tool.
A statement was put out saying that the developers of Elusive were "ceasing all maintenance, development, and distribution of our cheat menu services,” and offering to donate all proceeds from sales of the tool to a charity of Take-Two's choosing.
Reports indicate that since then he has not been contactable, and so attempts to negotiate a settlement were not successful.
Court records show he did not respond to filings demanding he turn over financial information showing how much he had earned from sales of Elusive, which led Take-Two win the case by default.
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This is the latest in a series of cases brought by Take-Two over GTA Online. Last year two other tools were taken down, with other makers of cheating tools forced to issue similar statements to Elusive, and donate proceeds to charity.
They aren't alone either - Epic Games has taken to the courts in a battle over cheating in Fortnite too.
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