Activision report claims players don't hate SBMM as much as they say they do
Skill-based matchmaking has long been a contentious subject in games like Call of Duty, but Activision found players don't play as much without it.
If you were to look at any of the conversations among players regarding skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) in Call of Duty, Destiny, and other first-person shooters in the last few years, one would think the system is one of the most problematic of all time with regular arguments over whether it’s fair or not. Activision just added fuel to that fire, but not in the way one might not expect. According to a report from the publisher, a majority of Call of Duty played less if SBMM wasn’t in effect.
The report from Activision regarding SBMM was posted this last week, as shared by GamesIndustry.biz. The report reveals that Activision performed a test back in early 2024 with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in which it loosened the constraints and workings of SBMM. Activision claims this resulted in over 90 percent of the Call of Duty playerbase playing less. Meanwhile, quit rates in matches spiked by about 80 percent during the test.
Source: Activision
Activision went on to share the conclusions it drew from the stats collected in its testing:
So it seems that despite loud arguments to the contrary, it seems players actually enjoy SBMM in first-person shooters more than they think they do, and it seems just as likely that Activision is going to keep the system running strong in the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 this coming October. Stay tuned as we continue to follow this story for further updates.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Activision report claims players don't hate SBMM as much as they say they do
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In the case of COD the complaint is basically two fold. One is that their implementation of SBMM is over tuned to a really narrow skill band so you're constantly having to play at the top of your game or else get killed which makes it hard to just casually hop into games and have fun. Second is that it removes a sense of progression, since your skill in SBMM is a totally hidden factor, what happens is just that say you get 2x as good as a year ago. You don't ever get matched with the same types of people you played with a year ago. At no point do you experience the fact that you're suddenly stomping people who used to give you difficulty. Instead, you're just perpetually fighting people who give you difficulty. This complaint is exacerbated further now that there is a ranked mode, since the argument would be that if you want to sweat your balls off and constantly have difficult fights then you can go play ranked modes, and if you just want to have fun and play some swingier matches then unranked should allow for that (but doesn't). Since the algorithm optimizes for engagement as a proxy for fun, the data shows if they relax SBMM then bad players play less (because they more often get matched with much better players and lose) which must mean they are having less fun. The obvious question is how good of a proxy you think engagement is for fun in the case of a matchmaking FPS algorithm.
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The other critical bits of data here are that a) the majority of COD players are very bad (< 1 kd) and that b) a single player who's a bit better than the average in that lobby can swing match win percentages by double digits.
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I don't mind it as long as there's an option to play without it as well. I hate having to constantly play at the top of my game if I just want to relax and enjoy a few rounds.
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For me the worst part is if I have a day where I'm actually functioning and go mildly demon for a bit, the next times I play when I'm not all put together like that I'll just get absolutely DESTROYED.
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Personally my only issue with it is that it tends to be poorly implemented when it comes to playing with a squad/friends.
The only proper way to do it is for each unique group to have its own rating, but very few games do it this way. Seeding the group rating from solo ratings on first play is fine, to prevent abuse, but it needs to diverge from there to handle the fact that sometimes you want to goof around with your friends without both messing up your solo rating and also ruining the experience for the weaker members of the group.
The only games I can think of that do it properly are Starcraft 2 and Warcraft 3. -
my only critique about it is that it makes it difficult for meaningful relationships to form within games, which imo exacerbates toxicity. especially for younger players without any memory of localized servers and server-based communities, basically everyone they play against is just some rando. it's much easier to be an asshole when you know you're unlikely to ever see the people playing with you again. for finding good match-ups it can work very well, but that's just not the whole story of competitive online gaming.
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bunch of saints and angels up in here. i'll be the one to admit that noob stomping is fun and if there's only SBMM then i'll never get to play against them. i don't play this game but in the game i play, unranked is random and ranked is SBMM. i play unranked so i can win 99.9% of the time
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I agree. I am no super star but I loathe SBMM. Knowing that the game is trying to hand out wins/losses to "manage" the experience for wveryone cuts out the heart of PvP. It undermines every match. Public matches should be just that, random with no twlling who you are going to run into. The people/whiners that only want "fair" matches belong in the ranked playlists. Halo 3 had this figured out/solved back in 2008. You have a ranked playlist where you get matched up with people on your level, and you have a social/public playlist which matches you up randomly. What you dont do is try to enforce some invisible system that is silently stacking the deck for or against certain players in an attempt to make everyone feel like a winner. There is nothing fair about that.
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Are we pretending that SBMM is an acronym that people use?
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If people aren't using the term SBMM, it sure does trend all the time on every social platform and Google.
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Super Bash Mothers Melee
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I don’t play competitive shooters, so probably
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