04/10/2024
Deprioritizing skill-based matchmaking turned Call of Duty into The Bad Place
Deprioritizing skill-based matchmaking turned Call of Duty into The Bad Place
Activision Blizzard has published a lengthy white paper that explains what happened when it dialed down skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) in Call of Duty. The TL:DR version? Almost everyone hated it.
The company sought to explore how SBMM impacts players in a variety of ways, which led to it running a 'Deprioritize Skill Test' in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III earlier this year.
The experiment saw the studio leverage its A/B test framework to loosen constraints on skill in matchmaking. It ran the 2024 test in North America and established a treatment group comprising 50 percent of the population. The other half of players were left unaffected.