The days of living on virtual easy street are coming to an end for many Grand Theft Auto Online cheaters. That's because Rockstar has begun resetting in-game balances for players with "illegitimately gained in-game money" in their online accounts. Many GTA Online players are waking up to a message notifying them that "we have determined that your account illegitimately gained in-game money via mods, cheats, or other actions. We've adjusted your account and updated your balance."

Over at the GTA Forums, member Viper-Venom reports that "every single person I know who has a modded account has had their money reset to $0." That includes players who gained up to $20 trillion by simply using mods to create and collect huge piles of cash in their in-game instance. Players with smaller balances seem to have less chance of being affected, based on reports, but the balance resets appear to be going out in waves, meaning modders who have yet to be affected aren't necessarily safe.

It's not just modders that are being affected—some players that used in-game glitches to artificially inflate their bank accounts are also reporting that their balances have been reset. Those who simply picked up the odd illegitimate money pile generated by other modders don't seem to be affected as of yet, however.

The in-game money reset comes alongside an update to Rockstar's banning and suspension policy for the game. Players will now see their GTA Online characters, progress, property, and inventory reset after receiving a suspension. In addition, players will now receive a permanent ban after just two infractions, tightening the previous "three strikes" policy that was widely reported. Rockstar warns that accounts using mods to gain money in the future will also be subject to "the Cheater Pool, account reset or suspension."

In an explanatory message on the Rockstar Support site, the developer notes that this is all part of an effort "to keep the gameplay environment fair." But it's important to remember that Rockstar also directly makes money by selling in-game cash through microtransactions. The developer could argue that money-making mods are a form of piracy that affects a real-money marketplace worth over half a billion dollars.

In any case, new attempts to balance out the money supply may be small comfort to players that have been complaining about how easy it is to cheat at GTA Online since the service launched three years ago. While Rockstar said last year that it is "regularly rolling out fixes for specific exploits," the game's apparent use of a simple P2P mesh (rather than dedicated servers) reportedly makes the online experience incredibly easy to hack —and very hard for Rockstar to implement effective anti-cheating technology in the long term. In the meantime, the company continues to issue takedown notices for "videos that encourage and promote ways to cheat your way towards gaining illegitimate RP or counterfeit in-game money or duplicating in-game items without having earned them."

"While it’s unrealistic to say we can solve the problem of cheating forever and for everyone, we believe we are making significant progress on this issue and we will continue to work aggressively to stop these griefers in their tracks as best we can," Rockstar said last year.