But this apparently doesn’t affect the most experienced players.
Call of Duty fans have been trying to convince developers to stop skill-based matchmaking for years, but Activision has now published studyaccording to which such matchmaking has a positive effect on player behavior.
To compare skill-based matchmaking to regular matchmaking, the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 developers lowered Advanced matchmaking efficiency for 50% of players. The experiment was conducted in early 2024.
It turned out that simplifying the selection of opponents increased the bounce rate by 80%, and the percentage of returning players decreased by 90%. It is assumed that only 10% of the most experienced players did not change anything.
Activision believes that players abandoned Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 when they encountered significantly more skilled opponents. If advanced matchmaking were completely disabled, the company believes that the churn rate would be even higher.
Ultimately, Activision concludes, removing skill-based matchmaking would negatively impact the game’s entire audience. Inexperienced players would quickly abandon the game, while experienced players would wait longer and longer for matches to start.
