Plagued

Yesterday, the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta began in earnest, welcoming in untold thousands of eager players to try the game out before its proper launch on the 14th November. However, a number of cheaters also seemed to let themselves in and get up to no good.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta requires both TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled on your PC to play, which Treyarch stated was needed to “create a more secure environment that catches more cheating.”

Within hours of the beta starting, however, clips started appearing on social media showing off wall hacks and aim bots working in the beta. Take the below video posted to X, which shows the same old cheats in action.

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Now, this account was later banned manually as confirmed by Treyarch on X, but why are old cheats working on a new game so soon after it was in the player’s hands? Well, while the Black Ops 7 Beta requires additional kernel-level access to your computer, the updated version of Activision’s proprietary Ricochet Anti-Cheat has not yet come to the game. Instead, players will have to wait until the full launch to get additional cheat protection.

This is but the latest blow in the ongoing fight between FPS game developers and cheat manufacturers. A continuous back-and-forth where cheats run amok until an updated anti-cheat solution bans a vast selection of these cheaters. Then, after a little while, the cheaters learn how the anti-cheat works and it circles round and round. This particular cycle has been a fixture of the Call of Duty series for years.

There are other options available to players who want to curb cheating. Activision announced earlier this year that it’ll allow console players to turn off crossplay to avoid cheating, admitting the majority of cheaters are playing on PC.

It’s worth noting that this year’s current Call of Duty competitor Battlefield 6 has also suffered at the hands of cheaters during its open beta, with EA’s anti-cheat shutting down over 300,000 cheaters during its run.

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Automotive giant General Motors is preparing for layoffs at its assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri.

Although the layoffs will be temporary, the majority of the workers at the plant will be affected, according to a letter sent to employees by the plant’s executive director and the local UAW representative.

GM’s Wentzville plant builds the company’s Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon mid-size trucks, as well as the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans. The latter two are some of GM’s longest-running offerings and were rumored to be due for a complete EV revamp by 2026, but GM walked back on those plans, according to GMAuthority.

The reason for the temporary layoff—expected to last between September 29 and October 19—is a parts shortage.

GM didn’t respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo. We’ll update this post when we receive a reply.

The parts shortage is only the latest in a string of headwinds for GM, the major one being the Trump administration’s attack on the electric vehicle industry that caused the automotive giant to reevaluate its electrification strategy.

One of Donald Trump’s first courses of action as President was to initiate the repeal process of an electric vehicle consumer tax credit worth $7,500. Although the current tax credit was passed as part of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, an EV tax credit has existed in one form or another for more than a decade.

The tax credits are set to expire on September 30, plunging the electric vehicle industry into the great unknown.

That unknown caused GM to cut output at a major electric vehicle assembly plant, temporarily lay off workers, and indefinitely delay a shift at a Kansas City assembly plant that was set to produce electric Chevy Bolts later this year, Reuters reported in September.

GM’s (and America’s) EV test

Back in 2021, GM made a significant commitment to completely electrify its fleet of vehicles by 2035. A major roadblock for that vision has since arrived in the form of Trump-era EV policies.

According to CEO Mary Barra’s comments from last week, electric vehicles are still the company’s “north star.” Previously floundering demand is now looking up, too: sales of used electric vehicles rose 40% from last year in July, and GM’s own electric vehicle sales jumped to an all-time monthly record in August.

The company shared in a press release that although they are expecting strong demand in September as well, sales will “no doubt” be lower after the tax credits end.

“It may take several months for the market to normalize. We will almost certainly see a smaller EV market for a while, and we won’t overproduce,” Duncan Aldred, president of GM’s North America business, said in the press release.

The upcoming uncertainty is not just a test for GM, but a test for the U.S. at large. While EV demand flutters in the U.S. and Washington repeals key support for the industry, Chinese EV-makers like BYD enjoy government support as they ambitiously expand operations and global influence.

The demand might be slow-coming in the U.S. due to many reasons (one of which undoubtedly is the lack of EV charging infrastructure), but experts believe the future is still very much electric. Goldman Sachs analysts shared last year that they expect electric vehicles to make up 50% of global new car sales by 2035.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s beta is out, and is already plagued by cheaters

Plagued by Parts Shortage and EV Demand Uncertainty, GM Prepares for Layoffs

GM’s (and America’s) EV test