Cheating in online video games has become a rather rampant epidemic as technology advancements have continued. Some companies take it seriously while others don’t appear to be doing much at all.
However Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse has taken it to another level on 3 individuals who were making cheats of their massively popular game. The studio recently took legal action, which worked in getting them both fined and eventually sentenced to prison.
Gameres reported the cheats were first created back in 2020 when the Genshin Impact first launched. It allowed those with the software to gets infinite Primogems, which are the game’s premium currency that are mainly gathered through using real cash to obtain.
According to the report, they sold about 40,000 keys of the cheat software and made the equivalent of $300,000 in profits. This naturally drew the attention of HoYoverse, who pursued legal action against them.
After pleading guilty, the group leader will receive 4 years in jail with a fine of 50,000 renminbi (RMB, the official currency of China). The second member got 3 years and 10 months along with the 50,000 RMB fine. Finally the third member got a lesser sentence of 1 year and 6 months with a smaller fine of 10,000 RMB.
It seems that HoYoverse are quite serious when it comes to those cheating in order to essentially not pay to get some of the more premium stuff in the game, which is mostly gacha rolls. This makes sense given the high cost of development to produce and support Genshin Impact.
Genshin Impact is available and free-to-play on Windows PC (via the Epic Games Store and official website), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Android, iOS, and coming soon to Nintendo Switch. In case you missed it, you can find our Genshin Impact review here (we recommend it!).