Bungie's ongoing legal fight against Destiny 2 cheaters has been long and winding. First, it brought on Ubisoft to help, as both have a vested interest in taking on Ring-1, a hacker network that makes cheat software for both Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six Siege. The two launched a suit against Ring-1 earlier this year, citing copyright infringement that has done "irreparable damage to their goodwill" in addition to lost revenue and harm to their game's PvP communities.
The suit initially didn't have many names, but that changed as Ubisoft and Bungie investigated the cheating ring to identify its ringleaders. As reported by Torrent Freak, four names came up in a November filing, with two of them settling out of court. This left Andrew 'Krypto' Thorpe and Jonathan 'Overpowered' Aguedo as "high-level participants" in the organization.
As first uncovered by The Game Post, Bungie and Ubisoft are now targeting Thorpe in the suit and are demanding over $2.3 million in damages and legal fees. Both Bungie and Ubisoft provided supplemental legal briefs on how they arrived at that number using data obtained from Ring-1's own records.
For Destiny 2, Bungie was able to identify 2,295 accounts using Ring-1's cheating software and was able to further identify 1,099 US-based accounts through its own IP analysis. Ubisoft was likewise able to confirm 1,823 Rainbow Six Siege players using Ring-1 cheats and 592 of them were based in the US. Multiply the number of confirmed US accounts based on the price of their annual subscriptions and you arrive at that $2.3 million figure.
However, Bungie and Ubisoft noted that the true number of Ring-1 cheaters in Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six Siege was likely much higher. There are more accounts that both developers weren't able to link to Ring-1 simply because they used VPNs, IP spoofers, or other software to cover their tracks. Bungie estimated the actual number of Destiny 2 cheaters using Ring-1's software to be around 4,000 "at minimum."
The request for summary judgment is asking Judge Edward M. Chen to rule in favor of Bungie and Ubisoft and award these damages just based on the evidence presented. We'll see how Judge Chen rules when the case resumes on January 19.