One of the first rules of using a study to prove a point is examining who benefits from the conclusions of the study and weather those benefactors are the ones doing the study. In this case Activision being the authors of this study and coming to a conclusion that supports what is clearly a profitable business model for them completely fails this test. There is no doubt SBMM makes the game more profitable, no one is arguing against that, but loot boxes also make games more profitable… That said, I do see the value of SBMM for the player. It clearly is keeping more people playing or they wouldn’t be doing it. The only problem is that CoD SBMM feels very aggressive. The swing in the skill levels you encounter from game to game is just atrocious and feels like you’re punished for having a good game. The bigger problem is that people already hate CoD for many other (valid) reasons. SBMM is just what has become the face of that general public dislike for the franchise. Things like disbanding lobbies are wrongly blamed on SBMM. Valid concern, wrong cause. So Activision will happily keep the SBMM conversation going if it means less people are talking about the actual bad business practices they use that ruin the game experience way more than SBMM ever could
