'League of Legends' creators sue cheating service, win $10 million

Don't mess with League of Legends if you aren't prepared to pay the (really expensive) consequences.

League of Legends creators Riot Games won a lawsuit against the makers of a cheating and hacking service called LeagueSharp, earning Riot $10 million. On top of the steep penalty, the creators of LeagueSharp received a court-ordered ban from playing League of Legends and any other future Riot games as well as an order to hand over their LeagueSharp-affiliated websites to Riot.

LeagueSharp's product violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by getting around Riot Games' anti-cheating software to allow users to execute code scripts to alter the game, whether to trigger abilities at inhuman speed, level up League characters more quickly or create bot accounts.

When Riot originally filed the suit in August 2016, the developer alleged that LeagueSharp's creators attacked servers and that, when Riot confronted LeagueSharp, LeagueSharp leaked private information about a Riot employee.

League of Legends hackers and cheaters using LeagueSharp paid $15 to $50 a month to use the service, ruining the integrity of the competitive online game.

The lawsuit was settled against three of LeagueSharp's German creators and their alleged shell company based in Peru.