Rockstar threatens to ban "game-breaking" GTA Online money cheats

Grand Theft Auto 5 developer Rockstar is hot on the tail of cheaters swamping GTA Online with mountains of illegally-gained funds.

The "game-breaking amounts of in-game cash" were "disrupting the experience", Rockstar wrote in a new blog post, and will be removed.

"We will continue to issue title updates on an ongoing basis to counter the negative impact this has had on gameplay, and as part of today's maintenance period, we are removing the counterfeit GTA$ from the game's economy.

"Anyone who innocently received GTA$ as a result of these exploits but did not engage in cheating to acquire it will not face any further action - the funds will just be removed, and you'll be able to keep any items you currently own."

Anyone found to have generated the fake cash through exploits will be "subject to in-game penalties at our discretion", Rockstar continued, such as being placed in cheater-only servers or simply being banned altogether.

GTA Online is currently offline while Rockstar purges its servers, and will remain so until the operation is complete.

Rockstar has published a detailed FAQ on how the removal of funds may affect your in-game bank balance. Any money in your account from other players which originated illegally will be removed, but Rockstar will also add "sufficient funds to continue playing and enjoying GTA Online" if an account will be left "with little or no GTA$ after correction".

It's fair to point out that Rockstar has several reasons for acting on the recent wave of cheating. Not only does the introduction of fake GTA$ break the in-game economy, it also stops users spending real world money on the game's micro-transactions.