Call of Duty’s Skill-Based Matchmaking model (SBMM) has long been the source of much debate and contention in the wider industry. It’s believed that these days, Activision’s studios want to punish you for being good at your game while trying to shoehorn players into matches with those closest to their current performance metrics, which makes things ‘sweatier’ for almost everyone on a streak.
It’s why people feel that a single good game in Call of Duty leads to you being ‘punished’ by SBMM. In a recent video, Charlie Olson, one of the original creators of the Call of Duty SBMM algorithms as we know them, took a dive into these very topics and debunked some of the SBMM-related conspiracy theories circulating Black Ops 7.
Black Ops 7 SBMM is All Over The Place
In a new video shared by Charlie Olson of Invokation, the ‘Dark Art of SBMM’ was explored. Olson is credited with creating the current (or close to) SBMM model for Call of Duty during a ten-year stint at Raven Software. He left a few years back to focus on his own company, but has remained in the realms of SBMM, MMR, and multiplayer gaming.
In the 40-minute video, Olson runs through the technical know-how behind MMR and SBMM, explaining why the systems are viewed both positively and negatively by the wider gaming community, even beyond Call of Duty.
Here’s the full walkthrough:
Towards the end of his run-through of all things matchmaking, Charlie Olson addressed some of the ‘conspiracy theories’ that have surfaced in Call of Duty since Black Ops 7 was released midway through November.
On October 9, Treyarch posted on social media that ‘open matchmaking’ was confirmed to be coming to Black Ops 7, prompting many to fear that the game would be a casual crapfest. This is what Olson addressed first:
Some players are leaving because they thought this tweet meant SBMM had been completely removed from the game, and then they felt betrayed by the inclusion of one standard matchmaking playlist, and then blamed it for stealing ‘fodder’ from the open playlist.
What’s really going on here is there aren’t enough casual players at launch to make open matchmaking the pubstomp that was expected or promise. If open lobbies are sweaty, it’s because it’s mostly sweats playing.
Open matchmaking really does have minimal skill consideration and you can be sure that standard matchmaking isn’t pulling too many players yet, because most casual players just want the one or two modes they’re most comfortable with.
If you’re looking for noobs to stomp, my advice would be to try the open TDM playlist, that’s probably the best place to look.
He then jumped into the outright conspiracy theories surrounding SBMM in Black Ops 7. This core conspiracy theory suggests that Activision’s studios LIED about removing SBMM in open matchmaking.
Olson suggested that the evidence people are using to back up this theory is to be expected:
This usually comes with three pieces of ‘evidence’. One, open lobbies are sweaty. Two, wait times are longer than in the beta. Three, connections are worse than in the beta.
But those are just trade-offs from bringing back persistent lobbies for launch, assuming they don’t want low-pop playlists to starve.
Olson wrapped with predictions, suggesting that Black Ops 7 will ‘get sweatier’ and that the player count will mirror XDefiant’s performance before the game bombed out.
Do you believe the conspiracy theories surrounding Black OPs 7’s SBMM mechanics? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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