A few months ago, Destiny fans organised, protested, boycotted a new release, and got Bungie to reverse a decision the studio had presented as final. Now a Call of Duty YouTuber is wondering if the same playbook can work for the most persistent frustration in the franchise: skill-based matchmaking.
Tdawgsmitty — a long-time outspoken critic of Call of Duty’s SBMM system — launched a petition on change.org calling for the removal of skill-based matchmaking from the series’ unranked, public lobbies. Within roughly an hour, it had cleared 500 signatures. The timing is deliberate: Modern Warfare 4 launches in about a month, and it will carry the same matchmaking system that’s been dividing the community since Black Ops 7 this summer.
What the Petition Actually Asks For
The petition doesn’t ask Activision to scrap skill-based matchmaking entirely — it asks for a more targeted application. SBMM belongs in ranked play, where players explicitly choose a competitive environment. In ordinary public lobbies, the argument goes, it ruins the experience for everyone: players trying out new weapons get punished, friends of different skill levels can’t relax together, and every match starts to feel like a sweaty qualifier rather than a casual evening game.
The petition also references a statement from former Call of Duty developer Brian Bright, who disclosed that his team’s work on the cancelled game NX1 focused primarily on ping and region matching. Activision subsequently hired data scientists who worked alongside the marketing department to push matchmaking in a more skill-oriented direction — a shift that the petition argues fundamentally changed what public lobbies feel like to play.
“For players like us, today’s public matches too often feel like the same competitive experience on repeat. When every lobby feels like another test, the fun starts to disappear.”
The Destiny Precedent That’s Fuelling This
The Destiny community didn’t just complain — they organised. After Bungie announced it was ending support for Destiny 2 and pivoting attention to Marathon, players chose not to buy Marathon and made their displeasure loud and public. Bungie reversed course, committing to restoring vaulted content and continuing Destiny franchise support. It was a rare win for player-led pressure in a space where publishers usually wait it out.
Tdawgsmitty has cited this directly as proof the approach can work. “This Destiny news is huge for gaming,” he posted on X. “It shows we can use our voice and effect change.”
Whether Call of Duty fans can replicate that result is a different question. Destiny’s audience demonstrated genuine willingness to spend nothing — to actually vote with their wallets in a way that hurt Bungie commercially. Call of Duty is a significantly larger franchise with a more casual core audience, and that kind of coordinated action is harder to sustain at scale.
What Infinity Ward Actually Said About Matchmaking
IGN recently spoke with Modern Warfare 4’s Multiplayer Design Lead Jacky Reynolds about exactly this topic. The response was measured — and careful.
“I think it’s a conversation that we’ll continue to have,” Reynolds said. “I don’t think it’s ever going to be a solved system. There’s always going to be new iterations that can be made. I think at the end of the day, yeah, we want players to be able to play and have fun.”
Reynolds also noted that he and his colleague “aren’t directly in charge of matchmaking” — a framing that neatly sidesteps the pressure while leaving the door open. The petition explicitly requests that Activision offer greater transparency about how matchmaking works and give the community a chance to test proposed changes, rather than having adjustments made quietly mid-season.
The core ask: Remove strict SBMM from public multiplayer, restrict it to Ranked Play, and be transparent about matchmaking changes rather than making silent adjustments during the game’s life cycle.
Whether 500 signatures — or even 50,000 — moves the needle at Activision remains to be seen. But with Modern Warfare 4’s launch weeks away and the Destiny precedent still fresh, the conditions for this kind of community push are about as favourable as they’ve ever been.
