Refraining from creating or selling game cheats and aids, including AI tools that only capture screenshots without touching memory

2. Refraining from creating or selling game cheats and aids, including AI tools that only capture screenshots without touching memory

Cost: There is no monetary cost. The trade‑off is giving up potential income from such orders and “small tools.” The difficulty lies in the fact that this money comes quickly and it’s unclear who might eventually pursue legal action.

In plain terms: Selling to just 20 users or earning 5,000 yuan is enough to qualify as “serious circumstances,” leading to a sentence of up to three years. In especially serious cases the penalty ranges from three to seven years. One developer who created aim‑assist and wall‑hack cheats sold them over 80,000 times in three months, netting more than 30,000 yuan; he received a one‑year suspended sentence plus a 5,000‑yuan fine. Another individual obtained the game’s server code, ran a private server, and collected over 20 million yuan in payments; he was sentenced to four years in prison and fined up to 10 million yuan.

Benefit: Distributing programs or tools designed to intrude upon or illegally control computer systems can result in imprisonment of up to three years, along with a fine, or a fine alone if the circumstances are deemed “serious.” For especially serious cases the sentence rises to three‑seven years plus a fine. The threshold for “serious circumstances” is reaching 20 users or generating at least 5,000 yuan in illicit profit. Intentionally bypassing or sabotaging technical protection measures may also constitute copyright infringement, punishable by up to three years, or up to ten years in more severe instances. Official examples include Wang and others who sold memory‑modifying cheats; they earned over 30,000 yuan in three months and received a one‑year suspended sentence plus a 5,000‑yuan fine. Another case involved Xiang and others who sold the “TZ” series of cheats, generating over 200,000 yuan; Xiang got three years suspended and a 20,000‑yuan fine. Liu and others obtained server code, altered parameters, and ran a private server that attracted over 20 million yuan in payments; they received sentences ranging from four years down to two years and six months, along with fines from 1 million to 1.3 million yuan nationwide.

Evidence grade: A

Sources: National People's Congress (2020). Criminal Law (Amended in accordance with the Criminal Law Amendment (11), Article 285, Paragraph 3, Article 217, Item 6). <https://jtgl.beijing.gov.cn/jgj/jgxx/flfg/fl/11033925/index.html>; Supreme People's Court of China, Supreme People's Procuratorate of China (2011). Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in Handling Criminal Cases Endangering the Security of Computer Information Systems (Article 3). <https://ga.sz.gov.cn/ZWGK/ZCFG/ZCJD/content/post_1304363.html> (Reprinted by Shenzhen Public Security Bureau); Supreme People's Procuratorate of China (2026). Shanghai Jing'an: Strictly punish the production and sale of black and gray game plug-ins to protect a clear cyberspace. <https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/zdgz/202608/t20260825_735480.shtml>; Supreme People's Procuratorate of China (2021). Typical cases of procuratorial organs protecting intellectual property rights in 2020 (Case 5). <https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/xwfbh/wsfbt/202104/t20210425_516525.shtml>

Notes: All published cheat‑related rulings involve programs that read or modify game memory and circumvent anti‑cheat systems. No official cases have yet addressed aids that merely capture screenshots or simulate keystrokes. Nevertheless, a recent ticket‑scaling case shows that even tools that do not touch memory but merely send requests can be deemed illegal data‑acquisition tools. Whether an act qualifies as a crime and which charge applies is determined by law‑enforcement agencies based on evidence supplied by game developers, not by the author’s interpretation. The requirement of just 20 users to meet the “serious circumstances” threshold is quite low.