Diablo Immortal, the mobile-first iteration of the Diablo series, has been widely criticized by players as being “pay-to-win.” Players can purchase all sorts of items that will, in some way, give them an advantage over others. Developer Blizzard, however, doesn’t sell experience or level boosts, meaning even players who pour cash into the free-to-play game will actually need to play the game for the most part in order to progress.

Well, not anymore. Only days after the game launched in North America, a gray market is already booming where users can purchase Diablo Immortal accounts that come with a maximum-level character, or they can buy the services of someone else to play their character for them to boost them through the game’s story campaign or run dungeons in the hope of loot. These sorts of third-party products are common among online games, and especially massively multiplayer ones, but the juxtaposition of the official in-game “pay-to-win” items players can buy and unofficial services that likely violate Diablo Immortal’s terms of use highlight the game’s widely criticized monetization scheme.

One of the very first messages I saw when I logged into Diablo Immortal for the first time on Friday was an advert for a particular website.

“ITEMS TRADE PLATFOM [sic]: WVVW.P 2 P A  H.COM,” a player called “Tulix” spammed in the in-game chat over and over again, using various tricks like two Vs instead of a W and extra spaces to presumably try and avoid any spam filters Diablo Immortal is using.

A photo the author took at the time of the advert for a third-party marketplace. Image: Waypoint.

Going to that site presents visitors with a cornucopia of different Diablo Immortal things to buy. For $200, people can buy a Barbarian or Crusader character at the game’s maximum level of 60 on their choice of server. There are hundreds listed for sale. For the cheaper price of $116.60, a vendor on the site will boost a character from level one to 60 on your behalf. The process takes around 47.5 hours, according to the listing.

Another website called BoostHive offers a more granular selection of boosting services. In one the site will take a buyer’s character and play through the game’s campaign for them. That takes around 10 hours and costs $89, the website says. Another listing offers the chance to outsource completing Diablo Immortal’s daily quests from the game’s bounty board. Each day costs $10, or a buyer is offered 15% off for ordering 10 days worth of quests at once. A third listing says that the site will play Challenge Rifts for you, which are generally one of the activities that ordinary players churn through in the game to have a chance at obtaining rare equipment for their character.

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In its official microtransactions, Diablo Immortal lets players buy a battle pass, which provides an extra list of items they can unlock by completing quests (players can also pay extra to skip this and just get the rewards); “crests” which let players run a dungeon with a guaranteed pay out of a valuable gem which can be used or resold; and commodities which can then be traded for upgrade materials. The game also offers cosmetic items for sale. 

Rhykker, a popular Diablo-focused YouTuber, said in a recent video that “yes, you can buy power in Diablo Immortal, both directly and indirectly. Yes, spending money will give you an advantage over other players who do not spend money.”

Blizzard did not respond to a request for comment on the third-party marketplaces selling access to characters and boosts.

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Vlad Lomakin used to stream himself on Twitch chatting with his followers about TikTok videos or playing video games such as Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto from his apartment in Kharkiv. But when the war in Ukraine started, he quickly switched to sharing images and videos of his city getting bombed to his 92,000 subscribers, the majority of whom live in Russia.

“Fortunately, my followers understand everything; they clearly see that this is a war, civilians are dying, many are forced to leave their homes,” Lomakin, whose Twitch username is Lomaka, told Motherboard. “A lot of people came in and apologized in the chat for the action of their president, even though they did not choose him.” 

Lomakin would soon leave Kharkiv himself, as the city, which lies just 15 miles from the border of Russia, continued to be shelled for weeks. Now, much of the city lies in ruins. The 20-year-old Russian-language streamer is now a refugee in Dnipro living with his family and waiting for a chance to stream again.

But many other Twitch streamers in Ukraine are continuing to stream images and videos from an increasingly violent war, giving their Russian followers a different picture than the one painted by official media. And after the Russian government shut down Western social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook and limited content on YouTube last month, the gaming-focused platform owned by Amazon has become one of the rare channels Russians can access without the help of VPNs.

Lomakin believes that Russia's government hasn't focused on spreading propaganda on Twitch to the extent it has on other networks, and says that the young audience on the platform is generally more skeptical of the Russian government. Russia has kept a tight grip on information, passing a law that imposes a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally "fake" news about the military and shutting down independent media.

At the beginning of March, Lomakin and other Ukrainian Twitch streamers made a video asking Twitch not to pull out from Russia. As western countries introduced sanctions, many tech companies, including Google, TikTok, Nintendo, and Netflix have either paused some of their services or decided to pack up and leave. Twitch suspended payments to Russian users due to sanctions.

“We thought that we can address Russian audiences, young audiences that can accept information better than people that are watching Russian propaganda,” said Mykhailo Zvieriev, a professional YouTube broadcaster and Twitch streamer known as Olsior with a 116,000-strong follower base.

Zvieriev’s last stream from his home in Kyiv was on Feb. 24, the day Russia launched its invasion. Two days later, he escaped with his family to the Carpathian mountains and then to Lviv, a city on the western side of Ukraine close to the Polish border. 

The streamer has switched his usual content of watching anime and talking to followers to bringing news from different media and government outlets to his followers, about 63 percent of whom are Russian, according to data he can see on the Twitch backend. He says he’s careful when sharing unverified information, warning his followers to do their own research. But as the war drags on into its sixth week, Zvieriev is no longer sure his streams have the power to change minds.

“Ninety-nine percent of the audience that wanted to get real information from Ukraine already got it,” he says. “And for the people who don't want any information from here and prefer watching Russian TV, Twitch won't help.” 

Ukrainian Twitch streamers have gained many followers in Russia because of the shared language: Across former USSR countries, streamers are using Russian to reach larger audiences than by using their native languages, explains Stepan Shulga, head of e-sports at Parimatch Tech.

Shulga believes it’s just a matter of time before the Russian government bans Twitch. The platform has no geo-locks and no possibility to restrict content on certain territories. Despite the fact that many Ukrainian streamers have stopped streaming because of the war, those who are online do not plan to stop spreading information about bombings and the casualties: “There’s no way just to prevent people to get the truth.”

The streams, however, may not be enough to change minds. Around 70 percent of Russian Twitch commenters he's analyzed do not realize how bad the situation is, he says. Not only that, but many of the posts are spreading hate, creating a moderation problem for streamers. 

“What’s sad for me is that I streamed for a lot of people from Russia for eight years and they know me very well; I am a streamer with a good reputation,” says Arseniy Trynozhenko, known for his Twitch nickname Ceh9. “That's why the situation hurts me. A lot of streamers from Ukraine can't understand why their audience from Russia doesn't believe that airplanes are bombing their hometowns here.” 

Trynozhenko is a Counter-Strike champion. As a Russian-language commentator for esports tournaments and a founder of the Ukrainian professional esports organization Natus Vincere, he is well known in the field.

Politics has always been part of his streams, from the Euromaidan protests to the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014. But since the start of the war, Trynozhenko has lost a huge number the Russian followers from his 700,000-strong base. 

The esports player is living in Lviv where a bomb fell just 1.2 miles (2 km) away from his apartment. He got banned from Twitch for a couple of days after a user reported him for showing dead bodies during his stream. Twitch reinstated his account after he explained it was an accident, he said.

“Nowadays, I can't play video games because I can't relax. Every day is really terrifying,” he said. “You can't just play killing someone, shooting someone in a video game when your neighbors from Kyiv and Kharkiv, your friends, Ukrainians, are dying.”

Activision, the publishing giant behind Call of Duty, has filed a lawsuit against one of the biggest firms that creates and sells Call of Duty: Warzone cheats called EngineOwning, as well as individuals who allegedly work for the organization, according to court records filed on Tuesday.

The news marks an escalation in Activision’s tactics against Call of Duty, and specifically Call of Duty: Warzone, cheatdevelopers. The company has previously sent legal threats to cheat creators, such as one company called CxCheat.net in 2020. This time Activision has filed a formal complaint against the company in court.

“The COD [Call of Duty] Games are designed to be enjoyed by and fair for all players. When players use exploits like the Cheating Software [EngineOwning], such conduct disturbs game balance and in many cases leads non-cheating players to quit matches in frustration,” the lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California, reads. “Widespread cheating also can lead to negative social media posts and headlines in the press, which can impact consumer confidence. Accordingly, Activision has spent and continues to spend an enormous amount of resources to combat cheating in its games. Notwithstanding those efforts, Defendants’ sale and distribution of the Cheating Software has caused Activision to suffer massive and irreparable damage to its goodwill and reputation and to lose substantial revenue.”

The Verge first reported the lawsuit on Tuesday.

“They are the biggest COD cheat provider of all time,” Zebleer, the administrator of a competing Warzone cheat provider called Phantom Overlay, told Motherboard referring to EngineOwning.

Were you one of the people named in this lawsuit? Do you know anything else about EngineOwning? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, or email [email protected].

EngineOwning offers Warzone cheats at various different prices, such as 4.49 Euro for three days of access, up to 39.99 Euro for 90 days, the lawsuit says. The cheats can include aimbots, which automatically snap cheaters’ reticles to enemies making killing them trivial; extra-sensory perception (ESP) which lets cheaters look through walls, and triggerbots which automatically fire the cheaters’ weapons for them.

The lawsuit names specific people Activision says are involved with EngineOwning, including Valentin Rick, also known as Skyfail, who is the alleged leader of the organization. Activision says it contacted Rick in 2018 and 2020 to discuss EngineOwning, and Rick claimed at the time to have sold the cheating developer website to someone else.

“Rick has never provided any evidence that such a sale took place, and Activision is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that Rick has continued to manage and operate EO and the EO Website at all times relevant to this lawsuit,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit also names Leonard Bygla, also known as Reganmian and Noodleman, an alleged administrator; Leon Frisch, also known as Kraisie, an alleged lead moderator; Ignacio Gayduchenko, also known as Weather and Kokole, an alleged coder and developer for EngineOwning; Marc-Alexander Richts, also known as x0000x and Twenty, who is allegedly involved in selling the software; and Alexander Kleeman, also known as A200k, an alleged distributor who also performed some administrative functions for the organization. The lawsuit claims at least some of the individuals are spread across Germany and Spain.

Activision believes that EngineOwning Software UG itself and co-defendant CMM Holdings S.A. are German businesses based in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, Bavaria.

The lawsuit also targets a series of people under their pseudonyms, as their real identities are not yet known. These include alleged coders, high level members, and staffers.

Specifically, Activision believes the defendants are fully aware that EngineOwning’s cheats violate Call of Duty’s terms of use. Activision alleges the defendants have trafficked in circumvention devices, performed international interference with contractual relations, and conducted unfair competition.

Activision’s lawsuit asks a court to force the defendants to shut down EngineOwning’s cheating software, to provide Activision with the source code for the cheats, provide Activision with accounting of any and all sales of products in the United States, as well as damages for violating copyright law, and providing Activision restitution of the unlawful proceeds.

Zebleer, the administrator of Phantom Overlay, told Motherboard in an email that “The only winners today are the lawyers who keep getting paid in this endless failure of an effort to sue cheaters out of existence. Activision isn't going to stop cheaters this way. They need to do it via the anti-cheat route or they will continue to fail. These cheat providers dodge legal threats and allegations often, and if they can't, they just rebrand.”

Zebleer said they are not worried about Activision coming for them next, claiming that Phantom Overlay members have protected their identities.

“I'm not sure why [EngineOwning] did not protect their identities. Maybe they felt invincible because they are German. I'm a very private person so I've never let the country I live in determine how private I am going to be,” they added.

Activision did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cheat developers have always targeted the Call of Duty franchise, but hacking and cheating seemingly reached new levels of popularity in its free-to-play spin-off mode Warzone which launched in March 2020. The cheating became so rampant that high profile streamers quit the game, and Activision and Warzone developer Raven hyped the promise of a new anti-cheat system, called Ricochet, in the build-up to an update for the game.

Anecdotally, cheaters are much less frequent in Warzone after the launch of Ricochet. But the reputational damage against Activision remains.

“Defendants’ conduct has resulted in damage to Activision in an amount to be proven at trial. By Activision’s estimation, such damage may amount to millions of dollars. Unless and until Defendants are preliminarily or permanently enjoined, Activision will continue to suffer severe harm from the Cheating Software,” the lawsuit adds.

In December, workers at Warzone developer Raven walked off the job to protest the treatment of QA team members who were let go from the company.

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Not-E3 continues this week with the Steam Next Fest! Patrick and Cado checked out a bunch of different demos on stream, so they go over what they played and what their impressions are. Then, special Dragon's Dogma Correspondent Austin Walker joins to talk about the announcement of Dragon's Dogma II, and go over a bit of the ten-year road to this new game. After the break, Ren checks in with Dread Delusion, a Morrowind and King's Field-inspired open world RPG with a striking visual style, and Rob's checking in with the alternate-history Steelrising to explore the question "What if Louis XIV had an army of automatons to protect him during the French Revolution?

Discussed: Steam Next Fest 04:59, Metal: Hellsinger 08:26, Beneath Oresa 16:49, Signalis 24:52, Nine Sols 25:41, Moonscars 26:51, Deadlink 28:06, Melatonin 28:44. Stalcraft 30:04, The Dragon's Dogma Zone 34:49, Landlord of the Woods 51:34, Dread Delusion 54:34, Starship Troopers: Terran Command 1:03:06, Steelrising 1:05:00, Question Bucket 1:08:57, Outro and Announcements 1:38:42

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