Take-Two trying to take down GTA Online black market

Grand Theft Auto 5 publisher, Take-Two Interactive, is suing the Chinese company that owns PlayerAuctions, a third-party video game asset marketplace, in an attempt to take down the “lawless enterprise” of buying and selling GTA Online items, currency, and accounts.

“While GTA lets players experience a fictional underworld of lawless enterprise, the entities behind PlayerAuctions own and operate a real one: the website PlayerAuctions.com offers a vast online marketplace containing thousands of listings for unauthorized, infringing GTA V content – including heavily modified player accounts, in-game assets, and virtual currency – all gained by using hacking software, cheats, and technical exploits,” a Take-Two Interactive lawyer wrote in the complaint, which was filed Tuesday in California.

Take-Two Interactive alleges that PlayerAuctions makes “millions in revenue” each year off of transactions on its marketplace. The problem is, according to Take-Two Interactive, that third-party sellers aren’t selling “legitimate items.” Instead, its sellers use “hacking software and other exploits to create digital goods to provide illegal ‘services’” to GTA Online players, per the lawsuit. Regardless of how it was acquired, it’s not necessarily illegal to sell your GTA Online account to another player — but it is against Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games’ terms of service, which is one of the claims against PlayerAuctions, that it’s intentionally infringing with its terms of service with its players. The other claims are related to copyright and trademark infringement. (The infringement is related to GTA images and words used to advertise the goods that are sold.)

Take-Two Interactive outlines how PlayerAuctions works with regards to GTA Online in the lawsuit; there are thousands of listings where sellers tout modded accounts, currency drops, and account boosting. Take-Two Interactive claims the modded accounts are modified using hacks to “to give exorbitantly high game level ranking and in game currency amounts, and to unlock in-game content that users must normally obtain through gameplay or purchase with virtual currency.” Currency happens via money drips, where the seller “will generate vast amounts of in-game currency” then transfer it to another player. Account boosting is sold as a service where the seller will take over an account and use cheats to generate wealth or items for the player, Take-Two Interactive says.

Here’s how Take-Two Interactive put it:

Through these offerings, PlayerAuctions markets to Take-Two’s customers an otherwise impossible experience: new players can begin GTA V with billions in VC and with a massive arsenal of in-game content—such as vehicles, clothing, and weapons—configurations only possible by hacking and modifying the GTA V game in breach of the Rockstar TOS. In some cases, these listings advertise “unlock all” accounts preloaded with maxed-out character levels and virtually all in-game assets available to acquire in GTA Online. Moreover, users buying Account Boosting Services give control of their GTA V account temporarily to an unknown third party – in violation of the Rockstar TOS – and disclose their GTA V account information, including passwords.

PlayerAuctions takes at least 12.99% in fees, Take-Two Interactive said; it claims in the lawsuit that PlayerAuctions makes “in the many tens of millions or even upwards of 100 million dollars.” At the core of this lawsuit, Take-Two Interactive suggests PlayerAuctions not only knows about the illicit actions used to generate stuff to sell, but encourages it, too.

“At the scale of its Website, PlayerAuctions risks upending the GTA V player experience and interferes with the balance and fairness of the game. PlayerAuctions’ business also actively promotes behavior that risks creating a ‘race for the bottom’ where innocent GTA V players feel pressured to buy unauthorized digital goods and service, or else resort to using hacks or cheating themselves, to ‘keep up’ with PlayerAuctions’ customers,” Take-Two Interactive wrote.

Last month, Roblox sued PlayerAuctions for similar claims — that the company is illegally profiting off its properties, and encouraging Roblox players to break Roblox’s rules. Take-Two Interactive, like Roblox, is looking to shut down the third-party marketplace. Polygon has reached out to Take-Two Interactive and PlayerAuctions for comment.