Call of Duty has a reputation as the most reliably profitable shooter on the market. But it also has a well-deserved reputation as a haven for cheaters and glitchers. Activision has taken an important step towards rectifying that by sending cease and desist letters to manufacturers of third-party hardware that allows cheating.
Activision confirmed it sent cease and desist letters to "several companies that create and sell these products and will take them to court if necessary. " It said many of the companies mentioned have voluntarily agreed to stop making the products. According to Activision, more than 150 manufacturers of these products have stopped or had their tricks rendered obsolete by software updates.
Conspicuous by its lack of response is Cronus, manufacturer of the Zen, the most popular device in this space. It can alter aiming mechanics in shooters and in sports games such as NBA 2K25. Now is probably a good time for Take-Two Interactive to fire off a few sternly worded letters of its own.
Right now, publishers are playing wack-a-mole with these cheaters. They release a software update, the cheaters find a way around it, and players suffer. Cheating isn't the only reason COD's numbers are falling off, but it certainly isn't helping.
In the old days, there wasn't much benefit to winning a game of NBA 2K or Call of Duty beyond boosting your own ego. Sadly, people still cheated. Now, with benefits ranging from lucrative tournament winnings to a pile of Twitch subs, there are literally millions of reasons to fake gaming godhood.