In September 2023, the official Weibo account of the Yujiang Public Security Bureau announced that, with the assistance of Tencent’s Guardian Plan security team, it had successfully solved the first case in China involving the suspected illegal production and sale of “AI cheats” targeting shooter games such as Valorant. The amount involved exceeded RMB 30 million, and ten criminal suspects were arrested, including two authors of the “cheat” programs and eight agents.

On May 6, 2024, the People’s Court of Yujiang District, Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, held a public first-instance trial and announced its judgment in this case. According to official reports [1], the defendant Wang Mouhe sought profit by producing and selling “AI cheats.” Up to the time of the incident, Wang Mouhe had illegally obtained profits totaling more than RMB 6.29 million. The court sentenced the principal offender, Wang Mouhe, to three years’ imprisonment with a five-year probation period for the crime of providing programs or tools for intruding into or illegally controlling computer information systems.

Since the incident occurred, online discussions about this case have continued unabated. It appears that, whether from a technical or a legal perspective, there is significant controversy over whether “AI cheats” constitute the crime of providing programs or tools for intruding into or illegally controlling computer information systems under the Criminal Law.

 Author of this article | Attorney Shao Shiwei

The core member of the group, Wang Mou, was only 26 years old and originally engaged in research and development in the field of artificial intelligence. In early 2021, he accidentally came across an explanatory video on a third-party video website introducing “AI cheats” for shooter games. Due to his professional sensitivity, he believed that if such AI cheats specifically designed for shooter games could be mass-produced and sold, they would generate substantial profits. He then collaborated with Zhang Mou, who could write cheat software. After completing the production of the “AI cheats” involved in the case, Wang began to recruit multi-level agents online to sell the products involved. By the time of the incident, the amount involved in Wang’s group had reached more than RMB 30 million.

As early as December 2003, five departments, including the General Administration of Press and Publication, the Ministry of Information Industry, and the National Copyright Administration, issued the Notice on Launching Special Governance Against “Private Servers” and “Cheats,” cracking down on cheats.More than twenty years have passed since the issuance of this Notice, and the definition of “cheats” contained therein remains the only official definition to date.

However, the definition of unlawful conduct involving “cheats” in this Notice is quite vague and can be summarized as follows:Disruptionin another party's game workstechnical protection measures, and modifying work dataconduct.

The gaming industry has undergone a sea change in its profit models, evolving from early standalone games to current online games. For standalone games that generate revenue through software sales, players' use of cheats after purchasing the software does not cause significant harm to the game publisher's interests. However, for online games, the publisher's interests are directly linked to players' online time and in-game items; thus, cheat technologies severely impact the publisher's interests.

According to the national standard GB/T 32413—2015 Prevention and Control of Cheats in Online Games, game cheats can be classified as follows (see figure below): keyboard simulation cheats, system acceleration cheats, memory and game packet protocol modification cheats, AFK (away from keyboard) farming cheats, offline-mode cheats, and other cheats.

1. What are the differences between "AI cheats" and traditional cheats?

In traditional game cheats, achieving cheating functions requires intruding into, monitoring, and tampering with key in-game data. This involves modifying game files and computer systems to disrupt game balance, enabling features such as wallhacks to predict enemy positions and aimbots for automatic targeting.

"AI cheats" do not rely on intrusion, monitoring, or tampering with in-game data, but instead simulate cheating behaviors as human operations. Specifically, the cheat first uses a video capture card to record the real-time output of the game screen and immediately transmits it to another computer. On this computer, a pre-trained object detection algorithm (YOLO) is used to perform rapid target detection.

Once target enemies are identified in the transmitted footage, the direction and distance for mouse movement are calculated directly. These data are then sent to the mouse input control device to perform automatic aiming, completing rapid shooting that exceeds normal human reaction speeds.

In summary, the process involves capturing the game screen, computing the resulting data, and finally having the AI input targets for shooting. Throughout this process, such assistance operates entirely outside the same program, and even on different hardware. It does not require modifying game files or installing additional plugins, nor does it rely on intrusion, monitoring, or tampering with in-game data. Therefore, "AI cheats" are difficult for game administrators to detect, naturally evading anti-cheat searches. Theoretically, they can be used in all FPS (First-Person Shooter) games, such as Call of Duty, CS:GO, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and Valorant.

2. Does an “AI cheat program” constitute the offense of “providing programs or tools for intruding into or illegally controlling computer information systems”?

As the name suggests, a prerequisite for constituting this offense is the “intrusion into or illegal control” of a computer information system. From a technical perspective:

According to the expert opinion in this case:

Attorney Shao believes that convicting the perpetrator based solely on this expert opinion may be somewhat tenuous:

1. Unauthorized acquisition of game screen data—Users do not need to obtain authorization to receive game screen data.

2. Unauthorized modification of mouse data instructions processed within the game—Users do not need to obtain authorization to invoke movement instructions from their own mice or hardware.

3. Addition of “auto-aim” and “auto-fire” functionalities within the game—In this case, no code was added to the game program itself; rather, an auto-click function was added to the user’s own mouse program. Regarding mouse macros, most major mouse manufacturers provide drivers that include macro settings. Mouse macros do not tamper with in-game data or inject code into memory. Although they may affect game fairness, they should not be characterized as “cheat programs.”

4. Disrupted the normal operating environment of the game—without compromising the game’s own codebase.

In principle, the “AI cheat software” at issue in this case is not a game cheat in the traditional sense; rather, it is a computer vision technology that operates entirely independently of the game. It does not modify the game’s memory or data. Instead, it continuously trains AI to recognize human-shaped contours on the screen and automatically moves the mouse smoothly within those contours, simulating genuine player input to achieve “auto-aim.” With sustained, long-term training on in-game visual scenes, the AI capabilities will continue to improve.

Online discussions among netizens regarding the technical aspects of this case are also noteworthy and can be briefly summarized as follows: although the “AI cheat software” did not tamper with game data, Tencent can still detect whether players are “cheating” by using such methods.

Attorney Shao believes that, from a jurisprudential perspective, there remains significant controversy over whether this case should be characterized as the crime of providing programs or tools for intruding into or illegally controlling computer information systems. However, if the concept of “cheat software” is broadly interpreted from the game publisher’s standpoint, it appears that any method that grants users an unfair advantage constitutes “cheat software,” regardless of whether AI technology is employed or whether the game’s internal data is actually intruded upon or tampered with. If Mr. Wang, the defendant in this case, had possessed a similarly “profound” understanding of the concept of “cheat software” as the aforementioned content creator, this litigation might have been avoided.

Although “no crime without explicit legal provision” is a fundamental principle, statutory law inevitably cannot comprehensively regulate rapidly evolving business models. In adjudicating this case, greater emphasis was placed on social effects: although the “AI cheat software” in this case differs substantially from game cheats addressed in prior decisions, it objectively harmed the interests of the game publisher and affected the fairness of the game.

This case also serves as a warning to merchants selling such “cheat software”; relevant practitioners should carefully consider the consequences before proceeding. Nevertheless, a casual search on Taobao still reveals numerous stores selling such software. It is likely that, while preoccupied with generating profits, these operators have little time to contemplate legal risks.

This reminds Attorney Shao of a remark once made by Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance: “It is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission,” which is an intriguing statement.

[1] The first case of its kind nationwide! Yujiang Court publicly announces judgment! https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/N3Qxv1hS_R70auyBzOxz9Q

[2] [News Live Broadcast] The nation’s first “AI game cheat software” case http://tv.cctv.com/2023/11/27/VIDEa5p5vvMTNz7h5YmlDqiU231127.shtml

[3] Notice of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Issuing the Ninth Batch of Guiding Cases of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Case No. 36: Wei Menglong, Gong Xu, and Xue Dongdong – Case of Illegally Obtaining Data from Computer Information Systems

[4] “Understanding and Application of the Supreme People’s Court’s Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases Endangering the Security of Computer Information Systems,” published in Issue No. 19, 2011 of People’s Justice (Application)