Activision has released a statement, finally addressing the skill-based matchmaking experience that Call of Duty players have become increasingly frustrated with over time, especially now in Modern Warfare 3.
Skill-based matchmaking, or SBMM, has been present in multiplayer games for many years now, as developers seek to pit players of similar skill levels against one another.
However, many players have complained that it’s become increasingly stronger year on year, and has been a key complaint about Modern Warfare 3 despite generally positive sentiment from the playerbase.
Now, after years of speculation and Activision not speaking on the topic, they’ve published a statement.
Call of Duty statement on SBMM
Call of Duty has finally broken its silence around matchmaking and whether SBMM actually affects the games players get into.
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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
The statement reads: “We know there is a lot of interest in the matchmaking experience, especially around how skill contributes to how lobbies and matches are put together. Nothing is more important to us than the experience players have with the game, and matchmaking is a big part of that. We’ve been working on our matchmaking system for well over ten years, and we continue to spend a ton of time and energy on improving the matchmaking process. This involves people working at our Call of Duty studios, our backend services teams at Demonware, and other groups like our Player Insights team.
“It’s a large effort that we’ve worked on for many years, and our approach combines latency, search time, and skill, along with many other factors, to try to find the best match experience for you. Talking about this topic in detail can be hard, and we haven’t spent the time to pull together all of our work to share with you our insights and improvements over the many years. We’re looking forward to doing that in the coming weeks after Season 1 launches, and we’ll also make it a part of our ongoing discussions with the community.”
The promise to have “ongoing discussions” with the community regarding matchmaking will no doubt be music to many players’ ears, though many will have hoped to hear that they will work on improving the matchmaking experience or at least directly address SBMM.