Where does the $8.5 billion figure come from?

Activision cited an analysis by threat intelligence platform Intorqa, which forecasts the cheating economy at around $8.5 billion a year. It is an estimate of the whole games-industry cheat economy — including account sales, boosting and spoofing services — not a measured figure for Call of Duty cheat sales alone.

How much does it cost to cheat in Warzone?

Activision says cheat subscriptions run at roughly $40 a month on average, with higher-end services going beyond $100. Once spoofing tools and replacement accounts are added, it reckons some players spend more than $1,000 a year.

Will this actually clean up my lobbies?

Not on its own. Activision's argument is economic rather than technical — make cheating expensive enough and the market shrinks. Whether that shows up in your lobbies is something you will only see over a season, not a patch.

News

Activision says the cheat economy is worth $8.5 billion a year — and shares its RICOCHET takedown numbers

Q: How many cheat sellers has Activision actually taken down?

Activision says it has disrupted more than 375 reseller operations, issued more than 80 cease-and-desist demands and helped shut down 31 primary cheat vendors.

By TourneyTime · 22 September 2026

Activision says the cheat economy is worth $8.5 billion a year — and… — Tourney Time Network

The short version

Activision has put numbers on its cheat crackdown for the first time in a while, and they are big ones. The publisher says the cheat economy it is fighting is worth roughly $8.5 billion a year, and that its RICOCHET team has disrupted more than 375 reseller operations, issued more than 80 cease-and-desist demands and helped shut down 31 primary cheat vendors.

The statement went out through Call of Duty’s official channels on 18 September 2026 and was picked up by Dexerto and NME on 21 September.

What Activision actually said

In its own words:

“Cheat sellers have built a sprawling, multi-billion-dollar marketplace of resellers, subscription services, cheat reskins, illicit accounts, spoofing tools, and organized distribution networks.”

And on the strategy:

“We’ve paired technical detection with sustained legal action to destabilize the cheat ecosystem at every level. We’ve disrupted more than 375 reseller operations, issued more than 80 cease-and-desist demands, and helped shut down 31 primary cheat vendors.”

The enforcement numbers

Action	Reported total
Reseller operations disrupted	More than 375
Cease-and-desist demands issued	More than 80
Primary cheat vendors shut down	31

This is the same playbook Activision has been running for years, just with the receipts attached. Dexerto notes the publisher has previously won judgments against cheat providers too — EngineOwning was ordered to pay more than $14 million in 2024, following a lawsuit filed in 2022.

What it costs to cheat

Spend	Reported figure
Cheat subscription	Around $40 a month on average; higher-end services exceed $100
Total annual outlay	Can pass $1,000 once spoofers and replacement accounts are counted

Activision’s line on this is explicitly economic: “RICOCHET Anti-Cheat keeps making cheating harder, riskier, and more expensive to sustain.” The theory is that you do not have to make cheating impossible, only unaffordable.

Treat the $8.5 billion with a bit of care

This is the part worth slowing down on. The figure is not Activision’s own measurement — it is a forecast from threat intelligence platform Intorqa, and it covers the cheat economy across games, not Call of Duty specifically.

NME’s reporting breaks the estimate down further: Intorqa’s February analysis put cheat subscriptions themselves at around $3.5 billion, with the remaining chunk coming from adjacent services — account sales, boosting, spoofing tools. So “$8.5 billion cheat market” is really “$8.5 billion shadow economy around competitive games”. Still enormous. Just not the same claim.

What it means for your lobbies

Honestly? Nothing you will feel this week. Supply-side enforcement is slow work — vendors get replaced, reskins appear, the market reprices. The number worth watching is not how many vendors get shut down, it is whether the cost of staying undetected keeps climbing. That is the lever Activision is actually pulling.

If you are still running into blatant cheaters on Verdansk, report in-game rather than on Reddit — the report queue is the bit that feeds detection.

Sources we check

We track Activision’s own Call of Duty channels and RICOCHET progress reports first, then cross-check against Dexerto, Dot Esports, Charlie Intel and NME before anything lands here. Where a number comes from a third party — as the $8.5 billion figure does — we say so.

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