For years, the CoD community has been dominated by one major topic of controversy. Now, the devs of the controversial Modern Warfare 3, of all games, want to speak out for the first time

In the community of Call of Duty there’s a word that echoes like thunder through Reddit, YouTube and social media: SBMM.

This is not a new Smash Bros. Melee, but the so-called Skill Based Matchmaking, which is actually a tool for fairness: An algorithm ensures that you only compete against equally good people in CoD multiplayer.

This is how Activision saves n00bs from the humiliation of losing too hard and ensures consistently exciting matches for pros. In theory.

In practice, the SBMM has been criticized for years. It is too strict, all matches feel the same, and the pros in particular complain about poor connections because the algorithm prefers to network them across the world instead of allowing them to dominate the servers in their home country.

Many accusations that are repeated every year without the CoD studios making much of a statement. Activision’s silence on the subject was boomingly loud – and the fans were angry. But now the developers of Modern Warfare 3 are announcing: We’re putting the SBMM cards on the table!

More transparency

In a statement taken up by CharlieIntel, the CoD team promises more transparency about the parameters and mechanisms of the SBMM in the future. Literally it says:

BREAKING: For the first time, the Call of Duty team has issued a statement about matchmaking.

It says matchmaking “combines latency, search time, and skill, along with many other factors” and will be more transparent about how it works in “the coming weeks.”

Full statement: pic.twitter.com/zsmB7VkAeB

– CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) November 30, 2023

We know there’s a lot of interest out there in our matchmaking experience, especially in terms of how lobbies and matches are put together based on skill. Nothing is more important to us than the experience our players have in the game, and matchmaking plays a big part in that.

We have been fine-tuning our system for over 10 years and invest a lot of energy and time in improving it. This involves people in our CoD studios, our Demonware service teams and other groups like our Player Insights team.

It’s a big, multi-year endeavor and our approach combines latency, search time and skill along with many other factors to find the best match experience possible

Talking about this topic in detail can be tough and we haven’t spent the time to share our findings and improvements with you yet. We want to change that – in the weeks following the launch of Season 1, and we don’t want to stop in the weeks after that either.

So far, assumptions (and also many myths) about SBMM from the community have been based on experience, but also on patents that Activision has registered over the years.

These patents also contained references to matchmaking based on skins and purchase incentives – although the extent to which this was actually in the game could never be proven.

Either way, the next few weeks after the start of Season 1 – i.e. from the beginning of December – should bring more clarity to the community’s biggest topic of contention.

What do you think of this radical change of heart regarding SBMM in CoD? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below

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