Ex-CoD dev suggests SBMM explanation from Activision contained “bullsh*t” claim

A former Call of Duty developer has called “bulls**t” on some claims made by the company in a recent post where they spoke about the matchmaking process and, more specifically, skill-based matchmaking.

On January 29, the Call of Duty team released a lengthy blog post that explained the matchmaking system in COD, detailing the importance of ping and connection, among other factors, when placing players into matches.

Of course, the one key thing most players were looking for was how player skill impacts matchmaking — namely, SBMM, with similarly-capable players pitted against each other rather than a varied mix from very good to very bad players.

For the first time ever, after years of questions, the COD devs finally answered, admitting that skill and player performance is, indeed, a variable considered in the matchmaking process.

One key part of the blog that stuck out was the following: “Call of Duty has historically considered player performance among other factors as part of our matchmaking process. Our work in this area dates back as early as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007).”

With the suggestion that SBMM has been in COD since some of its earliest days, many players questioned to what extent it had been changed over the years — though one former developer suggested it was “bulls**t” entirely.

Replying to a post about the topic on social media, Brian Bright responded with two emojis, suggesting that it wasn’t entirely truthful.

Bright is a former principal designer at Infinity Ward, having worked on Call of Duty in some capacity from Modern Warfare 3 (2011) all the way up until 2019’s Modern Warfare.

Bright didn’t expand at all on his comment, but many have taken it as proof that SBMM is not as old a game mechanic as the devs are suggesting.

This has certainly thrown a spanner in the works, with Call of Duty players not sure of who to believe in this situation, but it’s clear that no matter how SBMM worked in the past, they won’t be getting rid of it any time soon.