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CoD: Black Ops 7’s wallhack killstreak is receiving a frenzy of criticism, but isn’t the point of killstreaks that they’re unfair?

by admin October 1, 2025

What is Simp using?! 😱”You think this will be GA’d?” pic.twitter.com/VJUUwAZB8nSeptember 30, 2025

A clip from today’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 event has gone mildly viral, and is attracting the ire of onlookers who seem to feel that Call of Duty has, this time, gone too far with the wacky gadgets and guns.

The clip (embedded above) shows Call of Duty pro Simp using one of Blops 7’s new killstreak rewards, The Gravemaker, a sniper rifle whose wielder can see, and snipe, through solid walls. The go-to joke is that Activision has given up on combating cheaters and decided to just put wallhacking into the game.

I sort of get the indignation, because it doesn’t look fun to be on the receiving end of a bullet that was fired through two layers of concrete by someone you never could’ve seen, but I also sort of don’t get it, because aren’t all Call of Duty killstreaks like that?

How is this less fair than someone calling in an attack helicopter or carpet bombing part of the map? In some of these games you can call in a tactical nuke. A nuclear bomb!

Granted, the specific post I’ve shared is directed at the pro scene—”GA” refers to a “gentlemen’s agreement” not to use certain guns or abilities that have been deemed harmful to competitive play—and maybe this is something the pros will balk at.

To me, though, it just looks like yet another thing better players will kill me with. It appears that you get nine bullets, and so with perfect aim can score nine kills, which is a lot, but other streak rewards can do the same job. Also, Blops 7 will include the usual ‘Cold-Blooded’ perk so that you can hide from thermal optics.

I do agree that killstreaks and scorestreaks are annoying in general. I liked them way back in the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare because they were novel, and there were only a few of them to deal with, but these days I’d welcome streak-free playlists where I don’t have to be bullied by exceptional players who spend a quarter of the match shooting me from a helicopter.

The response here is probably more about vibes than anything: A wallhack sniper rifle is yet another prompt for the Call of Duty-fatigued to declare that they’re throwing in with the Battlefield crowd this year, and EA has smartly been playing up the idea that Battlefield 6 offers a more “grounded” take on modern warfare.

I don’t think Battlefield has ever been something I’d call grounded, but Call of Duty got so loaded up with live service cruft and goofy-ass crossover skins that it wasn’t a hard reputational battle for EA to win—it just had to not give Beavis and Butt-Head starring roles in BF6. Activision has started to change its tune on premium skins, but for the near future, I don’t know that it has much hope of escaping the narrative that CoD jumped the shark.

As Morgan just pointed out, it doesn’t help that Blops 7 hasn’t blown us away so far. I remain a sucker for CoD’s particular style of shooting, so I’ll check it out, but I doubt I’ll be good enough to ever earn this fancy sniper rifle. If I do, I guarantee that some kid will bound around a corner and noscope me before I even get a chance to look down that thermal sight, so you don’t have to worry about OP killstreaks from me, at least.

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October 1, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Xbox has made “largest investment in Game Pass to date” this year, countering recent criticism of subscription service’s value

by admin September 22, 2025

This year has marked Xbox’s “largest investment in Game Pass to date”, according to ID@Xbox boss Chris Charla.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Charla discussed the current state of the subscription service in the face of recent criticism, noting positive sentiment from developers and a desire to return for future projects.

“The majority of partners who’ve had a game in Game Pass want to bring their future titles to the service,” said Charla. “As a result, we’ve signed deals with more than 150 partners to expand the catalogue. We continue to engage with hundreds of partners each year to review upcoming titles.

“Last year, we worked with over 50 teams to sign their first Game Pass deal. This year marks our largest investment in Game Pass to date, and we remain focused on delivering the most exciting and diverse catalogue in gaming.”

Xbox has received criticism for Game Pass in recent months. Arkane Studios founder Raphael Colantonio described the service as “an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade”.

In a back and forth on social media on the “cannibalisation” of sales, Larian director of publishing Michael Douse added “smaller teams with new or riskier” games can benefit from Game Pass, but he prefers “Sony’s ‘lifecycle management'” method of adding games following initial sales.

Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden discussed the perceived profitability of Game Pass in a discussion with GamesIndustry.biz. “There’s a lot of debates going on,” he said. “Is Game Pass profitable? Is Game Pass not profitable? What does that mean? That’s really not the right question to ask anyway.

“You can do all kinds of financial jiggery-pokery for any sort of corporate service to make it look profitable if you wanted to. You take enough costs out and say that’s off the balance sheet and, oh look, it’s profitable now. The real issue for me on things like Game Pass is, is it healthy for the developer?”

Meanwhile, Football Manager boss Miles Jacobson recently told Eurogamer player numbers for the series have skyrocketed since being added to subscription platforms.

“We built a whole business model around it,” he said. “You can’t just turn around and do this – this was before we launched on the subscription platforms, we’d been talking about it. And we’d been working out what we were going to do for five years – it was a five-year journey before we went with the first experiment, and then we did another experiment, and then we did another experiment, and then we learned from those experiments, and that’s when the full strategy was put in place.”

In a broader interview with Eurogamer on the state of indie games on Xbox, Charla noted the breadth of games showcased by Xbox at Gamescom. “It is just really a recognition by Xbox of the absolute crucial need for diversity in our portfolio,” he said.

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September 22, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Vitalik Buterin Defends Ethereum Staking Exit Times Amid Industry Criticism

by admin September 18, 2025

In brief

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has defended the network’s long exit times for unstaking ETH.
Exit times for unstaking ETH now exceed 40 days and have drawn criticism from within the crypto industry.
Buterin argued that friction in unstaking is necessary to maintain Ethereum’s security.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has defended the network’s long exit times for unstaking ETH, arguing that the delays are a deliberate safeguard to preserve trust in the chain.

The remarks come as exit times stretch beyond 43 days for validators leaving staking, prompting criticism from industry figures who say the process undermines usability.

“It’s more like a soldier deciding to quit the army. Staking is about taking on a solemn duty to defend the chain,” Buterin tweeted. He explained that, “Friction in quitting is part of the deal. An army cannot hold together if any percent of it can suddenly leave at any time.”

It’s more like a soldier deciding to quit the army.

Staking is about taking on a solemn duty to defend the chain. Friction in quitting is part of the deal. An army cannot hold together if any percent of it can suddenly leave at any time.

That’s not to say that the current…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 17, 2025

“Troubling” ETH staking exit delays

Staking on Ethereum allows validators to earn rewards for attesting to and proposing blocks. Exiting staking fully requires validators to leave a queue, which can stretch for weeks depending on how many others are also trying to leave.

The average wait time to enter the staking queue currently sits at about seven days, while the exit time has climbed to 43 days and six hours, according to Validator Queue. With over one million validators and 35.6 million ETH staked—nearly 30% of all ETH—the process has slowed considerably.

The delays have spurred public debate. Galaxy Digital’s head of DeFi, Michael Marcantonio said earlier this week that the exit queue length was “troubling,” contrasting Ethereum’s six-week wait with Solana’s two-day unstaking period.

“Unclear how a network that takes 45 days to return assets can serve as a suitable candidate to power the next era of global capital markets,” he tweeted, before later deleting the post.

Marcantonio’s critique drew sharp pushback and rumours that he was forced to delete the post by Galaxy Digital.

Former Consensys product manager Jimmy Ragosa accused Galaxy of fueling “relentless ETH FUD,” warning that Ethereum-aligned businesses are reconsidering ties with the firm.

Solana supporters, including Mike Dudas, rallied behind Galaxy, casting Ethereum as clunky compared to its rivals. The firm bought over $700 million in SOL over a two day period last week as part of a purchase linked to its backing of a Solana-based treasury firm.

Buterin acknowledged the need for improvement at the user experience level, noting that the Ethereum Foundation has been working to address these concerns.

“In general the EF needs to be more active at the UX layer — which has already been happening for the past ~6 months, but ramping up takes time,” he wrote.

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September 18, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Cardano Foundation Fires Back After Hoskinson’s Criticism

by admin August 27, 2025

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The Cardano Foundation has issued a public clarification of its remit and recent decisions, answering a wave of community questions that followed Charles Hoskinson’s latest broadside against the organization. In a new forum post published on August 26, the Foundation outlines what it says are its day-to-day responsibilities for the network’s plumbing, its governance posture as a decentralized representative, and the legal provenance of its board—without naming Hoskinson or directly addressing his specific accusations.

Cardano Foundation Takes A Stand

At the heart of the Foundation’s message is the claim that its most consequential work is largely invisible to end users but foundational to exchanges and custodians. “The Cardano Foundation plays a critical ongoing role in the maintenance of key components used by exchanges and custody providers,” the post states.

The Cardano Foundation refers to services such as GraphQL (originally built by IOG on top of DB-Sync), a high-performance Java implementation of Rosetta backed by Yaci Store, the reference cardano-wallet, and the Token Registry and its API, which now supports both CIP-26 and CIP-68 metadata and has been embedded into GraphQL “for performance improvements.”

The Foundation adds that it “hosts a Token Registry API accessible to the public,” and says its Core Integrations, Engineering, and Exchange Relationships teams have worked with market venues “since 2021” to reduce friction and cost for ADA and native-token onboarding.

On the flashpoint of who should pay for new listings and token integrations, the Foundation says it will not fund bespoke Cardano Native Token integrations because doing so would “pick winners”—and, by extension, “losers”—across the ecosystem. That, the organization argues, exceeds its mandate and would distort a “diverse and complex ecosystem.”

The statement also underscores the Foundation’s role in on-chain governance since the launch of constitutional governance this year. It identifies itself as both an Intersect Constitutional Committee (ICC) member and a DRep, claiming a live stake “of nearly ₳233 million” across “331 delegators.” Acknowledging concerns about concentration, it says that “₳140 million” from its genesis ADA has been delegated to seven community-builder and developer DReps.

It points to educational resources, a DRep voting tool, governance flowcharts, and co-coordination of hard-fork processes as evidence of practical support aimed at “enabling the community to engage easily and meaningfully in on-chain decision making.”

Perhaps most notably, the Foundation revisits the 2021 overhaul of its board—a recurring theme in Hoskinson’s critiques. According to the post, after a “somewhat dysfunctional” period, Switzerland’s foundation supervisor fulfilled its statutory duty by bringing in an external law firm in January 2021 “to guide the Cardano Foundation into calmer waters.”

A head-hunting firm interviewed outgoing board members and IOG leadership, after which the new board president was elected unanimously, “including by the IOG board representative,” followed by two additional unanimous appointments (with one abstention) and the outgoing board’s voluntary group resignation; a fourth member was later appointed. The Foundation says it remains committed to “adoption, education and operational resilience” delivered “in an accountable and transparent manner.”

The Backstory

The timing is no accident. On August 22, Hoskinson used a surprise AMA to escalate his long-simmering dispute with the Foundation, centering on Midnight’s NIGHT token distribution and the Foundation’s claimed entitlement. Defending the decision to ring-fence the airdrop, he said, “We built it. It’s my money. We can do whatever the hell we want to do,” framing the restriction as a risk-control measure consistent with the airdrop’s terms and its intent to avoid “undue burden and harm to the network.”

In the same breath, he accused the Foundation of squandering opportunities and failing to support the ecosystem effectively. Notably, the clash has deeper roots. Late last year, Hoskinson urged relocating the Foundation away from Switzerland to a jurisdiction that would enable community election of board members, arguing that the Swiss supervisory framework—while lawful—constrains accountability to token holders.

He has also alleged heavy-handed intervention by the Foundation in constitutional drafting and broader governance, claims the Foundation has periodically rebutted with process narratives and disclosures. If the Foundation intended to calm the waters, early forum replies show the community pressing for more.

One user asked whether board elections could change current members and whether “the Swiss still have authority.” Another called for a roadmap toward community-driven board elections, arguing that the current composition “does not represent the community or its ambitions” and urging the dissolution and re-election of the board.

At press time, ADA traded at $0.86.

ADA remains above the red zone, 1-week chart | Source: ADAUSDT on TradingView.com

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

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August 27, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Bungie CEO Pete Parsons steps down, following years of criticism, layoffs, and that infamous classic car collection

by admin August 22, 2025

Bungie CEO Pete Parsons has stepped down from his position after over two decades at the studio.

Parsons has been much-criticised by fans and employees alike in recent years, in particular following multiple rounds of layoffs at the studio. In a public statement, Parsons said he’s “decided to pass the torch” – an ironic use of words when Bungie has seemingly been up in flames.

Parsons will be succeeded as CEO by Justin Truman, who’s spent 15 years at Bungie across both Destiny games and, more recently, forthcoming live-service shooter Marathon.

Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate | Launch TrailerWatch on YouTube

“I am deeply proud of the worlds we’ve built together and the millions of players who call them home – and most of all I am privileged by the opportunity to work alongside the incredible minds at Bungie,” wrote Parsons in his statement.

“When I was asked to lead Bungie in 2015, my goal was to grow us into a studio capable of creating and sustaining iconic, generation-spanning entertainment. We’ve been through so much together: we launched a bold new chapter for Destiny, built an enviable, independent live-ops organisation capable of creating and publishing its own games, and joined the incredible family at Sony Interactive Entertainment.”

Parsons also leaves hundreds of layoffs and negative player sentiment in his wake, not to mention an infamous penchant for classic cars.

Even before Bungie’s acquisition by Sony, reports emerged in 2021 of workplace toxicity and “overt sexism” at the studio, for which Parsons apologised. “I am not here to refute or to challenge the experiences we’re seeing shared today by people who have graced our studio with their time and talent,” he said at the time. “Our actions or, in some cases, inactions, caused these people pain. I apologise personally and on behalf of everyone at Bungie who I know feels a deep sense of empathy and sadness reading through these accounts.”

Then in February 2022, Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6bn, ostensibly to assist with its live-service ambitions. Though the acquisition was met with criticism by some – the FTC, for instance, opened an investigation – others were more positive.

In 2024, for instance, Bungie’s former chief in-house lawyer Don McGowan said Sony was “inflicting some discipline” on the studio to “run the game like a business”. “To be clear: I’m not talking about the layoffs, I’m talking about forcing them to get their heads out of their asses and focus on things like: implementing a method of new player acquisition; not just doing fan service for the fans in the Bungie C-suite; and running the game like a business,” said McGowan.

However, a year after the acquisition, Bungie laid off 100 employees – approximately eight percent of its 1200-strong workforce – after management warned staff revenue for the year was significantly below expectations. Many employees were left anxious about the future of the company, amid claims senior management met employees’ sadness at the layoffs with “indifference or even outright flippancy or hostility”.

Parsons followed the news with a statement on social media, calling it a “sad day at Bungie”. The statement was heavily criticised as tone deaf and a “slap in the face to anyone impacted by the layoffs”.

A year later, Bungie laid off a further 220 staff, representing roughly 17 percent of the studio’s workforce. Between both rounds, Bungie laid off around a quarter of its workforce in nine months, with the company reportedly overstating its financial prospects to Sony.

Current and former Bungie employees called that second round of layoffs “inexcusable”, amid calls for Parsons to resign. “Pete is a joke,” said former global social media lead Griffin Bennet (who was laid off in the previous cuts), while former Destiny 2 community manager Liana Ruppert wrote, “Step down, Pete.”

Parsons also faced criticism from staff for spending millions of dollars on classic cars since the studio was acquired by Sony, and bragging about his lavish collection ahead of job losses. The CEO’s public profile on Bring a Trailer revealed he’d appeared to spend $2,414,550 on vehicles.

Marathon | Reveal Cinematic ShortWatch on YouTube

Fans shared a similar sentiment against Parsons. Noted Destiny content creator MyNameIsByf (AKA Lore Daddy) posted on X: “Leadership needs to be changed. Their decisions have consistently led to disaster for everyone who has actually been making the games we play. They’ve been reckless with the studio, its employees, and its franchises. The problem is clear. Bad leadership. It needs to change.”

Now, Parsons is out, leaving Truman in charge. “I have worked alongside Justin for many years,” he wrote. “His passion for our games, our team, and our players is unmatched.”

Truman himself added to the statement with refreshing honesty, admitting previous mistakes made during Destiny 2’s launch. “I’ve also been part of these efforts at Bungie when we’ve maybe not been at our best,” he wrote. “When we’ve stumbled and realised through listening to our community that we had missed the mark. I know I’ve personally learned a lot over the years, as have all of us here, from those conversations.”

He continued: “I am committed to supporting and working alongside every member of the team here as we continue pouring our hearts and souls into these worlds. Worlds that we love, and that we hope have been worth your time and your passion. Because ultimately those worlds only exist, and thrive, with you in them.”

Bungie continues to work on Destiny 2, while its next release will be Marathon. While Marathon gameplay was finally shown back in April, in June Bungie delayed the game indefinitely in response to “passionate” fan feedback. Ahead of the decision, Bungie staff morale was said to be in “free fall” as it grappled with the fallout over Marathon assets stolen from other artists.

While such endemic toxicity and poor management cannot, of course, be pinpointed to one person, Bungie is clearly at a critical point in its history. Let’s hope this shift in CEO will boost morale at the studio ahead of Marathon’s eventual release – and whatever is next for Bungie.

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August 22, 2025 0 comments

A screenshot featuring the Kai Cenat skin in Fortnite.

Esports

Ninja defends Kai Cenat as Twitch star’s Fortnite skin sparks criticism

by admin August 21, 2025

Ninja is coming to the defense of Twitch star Kai Cenat after Fortnite added his skin to the game ahead of prominent creators more associated with the battle royale.

On August 19, Kai Cenat unveiled his new Fortnite skin, part of the Icon Series lineup, on the Las Vegas Sphere.

While Kai is one of the biggest names in the streaming world, some fans have taken issue with the AMP star getting a skin instead of Fortnite players or other streamers such as IShowSpeed.

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Surprisingly, Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins, someone who has had beef with Cenat in the past, stepped up to support Kai, explaining why it’s not as big of a deal some are making it out to be.

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Ninja responds to Kai Cenat Fortnite skin backlash

During a broadcast, viewers inquired why Kai was getting a skin and Ninja had a simple reply.

“There are creators who have Icon skins and then there’s just Icons,” Belevins explained. “It’s safe to say he’s up there in the streaming scene.”

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Going through the roster of skins, Ninja said that a Speed skin would be “great” too, but added that Epic doesn’t just pump out cosmetics.

“These things are spaced out, so we can still see a Speed one in the future and there are loads of people who don’t play this game every day.”

Of note, Ninja pointed to the Eminem, Billie Eilish and Harry Kane skins as famous people not exactly associated with Fortnite, and there was more room for streamers to get skins.

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Ninja emphasised that Kai is an Icon and the fact that he’s not getting a Creator Skin means he’s not taking a skin away from someone.

Furthermore, he was convinced that Kai would be playing Fortnite a lot during his upcoming Mafiathon 3 after setting a Twitch subscriber record last year with 728,535.

The Kai Cenat collab is set to arrive on September 12, 2025.

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August 21, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

DICE lead responds to criticism that Battlefield 6 beta maps were ‘not how Battlefield should be,’ urges everyone to ‘go play some smaller/medium maps in BF3 and BF4 to get a good example of the intensity curve’

by admin August 18, 2025

By all reasonable metrics, the Battlefield 6 beta was a resounding hit. Not only is BF6 already very fun based on the handful of maps and modes we got our hands on, but the two-weekend playtest period broke records for the series on Steam.

The beta wound down this morning with players clamoring for its October 10 launch day, but not without reservations. Among longtime fans, the loudest criticism surrounded map size: The beta lacked a truly big map that captured classic Battlefield chaos.

DICE lead producer David Sirland has been the one to field these complaints over the last few weeks. After the first beta weekend, Sirland assured folks that ‘large maps exist’ in BF6, but the studio chose to test small ones to show it could handle the “full-octane” chaos of CoD.

Then, well, it added yet another small map in weekend two, reinforcing concerns that the full map pool of nine will prioritize CoD run ‘n gunning over Battlefield’s traditional spaced-out firefights.

“That’s not how Battlefield should be,” X user Blasts4Satan replied to Sirland on August 15. “Listen to the veteran players, not the CoD fanboys. This is y’all’s last chance and it’s already looking a little too much like the other game in the room.”

We are very much looking back at our past modern incarnations when it comes to pacing. I’d urge everyone to go and play some smaller/medium map BF3 and BF4 to get a good example of the intensity curve.It is slower and more deliberate on the larger maps, as it was in the past.August 18, 2025

Returning to the thread days later to reply, Sirland reaffirmed that BF6’s pacing is on the same trajectory as the games it’s most inspired by, Battlefield 3 and 4.

“We are very much looking back at our past modern incarnations when it comes to pacing. I’d urge everyone to go and play some smaller/medium maps in BF3 and BF4 to get a good example of the intensity curve,” Sirland wrote. “It is slower and more deliberate on the larger maps, as it was in the past.”

It’s true that close-quarters, high-intensity maps are nothing new for the series: BF3 and BF4 had loads of smaller, linear meat grinder maps that folks remember fondly. I remember the disappointment when the only map available in the 2011 BF3 console beta (the PC version got an extra, larger map) was Operation Metro, a cramped trek through grass and tunnels that was unfriendly to vehicles.

Battlefield 3: Operation Metro Multiplayer Gameplay Trailer (E3) – YouTube

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At the time, I thought BF3 didn’t feel much like Battlefield, but I warmed to it at launch after playing Caspian Border: a wide valley of rolling hills, military compounds, and jet runways that checked every Battlefield box.

Still, Sirland repeatedly saying “large maps exist” and pointing to a 14-year-old game for proof doesn’t inspire much confidence. If large maps were a focus of BF6, you’d think we’d know what they look like by now. It’s reasonable to conclude that the BF6 beta was BF Studios debuting the primary identity of the game: Pretty and destructible maps, cramped gunfights, and sometimes vehicles.

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August 18, 2025 0 comments