'GTA Online' Hack Creator Must Pay $150,000 In Damages to Rockstar

Developers have been cracking down harder than ever before on cheaters in online gaming recently and Rockstar is no exception. Grand Theft Auto Online continues to be a popular staple in the community - which means a popular staple for cheaters. Later last year, the studio publicly announced that they were going hard after these cheat program creators, and now one has officially been sentenced and is being told to pay up.

Florida resident Jhonny Perez has officially been declared guilty for copyright infringement due to his cheat programs that he sold to other GTA Online players. As part of his sentence, he must pay Rockstar $150,000 in damage fees in addition to the standard legal costs.

For those that may be unfamiliar with Perez' work, he was behind the program called Elusive that gave players the opportunity to create their own money in-game while also providing coded loopholes for those same players that interrupted non-cheaters and their game experience.

The program itself ran anywhere between 10 dollars to 30, depending on the package sold. When Rockstart issued a cease and desist, Perez reportedly complied initially but then refused to address contact beyond that point.

"Mr. Perez's Elusive program creates new features and elements in Grand Theft Auto which can be used to harm legitimate players, causing Take-Two to lose control over its carefully balanced plan for how its video game is designed to be played." US District Court Judge Kevin Castel declared.

According to a recent report, Take-Two, Rockstar's parent company' mentioned that they were willing to negotiate with Perez, but it was the cheater's non-compliance following the initial request that "forced" them to take legal action. With the original payout in addition to the over 70,000 bucks in legal fare, this certainly poses a lesson to other cheat program creators out there that turn a profit for their code manipulation.

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Via: Kotaku, Torrent Freak