Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Beta Sparks Vociferous SBMM Debate Once Again

ign.com:

The long-running debate about Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM) has once again sparked into life after the recent PlayStation-exclusive Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 beta.

SBMM is a system designed to put players in lobbies made up of similarly-skilled players. “SBMM” usually trends across social media when a new Call of duty game comes out, with players on either side of the debate offering their take on why it’ll either kill that year’s Call of Duty or why it’s good for online play.

Disgruntled players sometimes react to SBMM by deliberately losing in a bid to matchmake against lower-skilled players in subsequent lobbies, and it seems some people who played the Modern Warfare 3 beta over the weekend were doing just that.

When it comes to COD, some players say SBMM has no right being in casual playlists. Ranked play, these critics say, is where SBMM should be used. Of course, not everyone is against the idea of SBMM, with some pointing out it is hypocritical for high-skill players to demand the right to play lower-skilled players instead of those at their own level.

Activision has never explained Call of Duty's SBMM, but it has always taken a dim view of third-party websites and apps that let players try to game the system. In 2020, Treyarch developer Martin Donlon tweeted to debunk the myth that previous Call of Duty titles did not have SBMM. "SBMM is one of many many tuneable parameters in a matchmaking system," Donlon said. "It's funny watching people talk about it like it's a big switch that can only be turned on or off." This tweet was subsequently deleted.

Earlier that year, former Call of Duty developer at Sledgehammer Games, Michael Condrey tweeted to say SBMM was "never directed into COD from me", adding "analytics,