A popular community site that helped track player stats and lobby quality in Call of Duty: Warzone has relaunched under a new guise, despite being previously shut down by Activision.
The site, formerly known as SBMM Warzone, was a massive hit and was a useful tool for players looking at their history in Verdansk. With the site pulling almost every stat imaginable, it became used for identifying and reporting cheaters, but also as a way for players to see the quality of lobbies in terms of the skill-level of their opponents. The latter was a particularly big deal, as it gave credence to the fact that Warzone may have elements of skill-based matchmaking, despite the game’s developers saying otherwise.
In March this year, the site was approached by Activision and told to cease operations, as SBMM Warzone’s use of API data was apparently in breach of Activision’s terms of service. The creators of the site have been battling to open up dialogue with the publisher and have even enlisted their own lawyers to see if they can continue to run the site.
Now though, in a defiant act, the site is back with a new name: WZ Stats. WZ Stats looks different from its predecessor, but its use will still remain mainly the same: being able to track both your own and other players’ Warzone game history, average K/D ratios, and more.
In a tweet, WZ Stats says: “We’ve tried to contact Activision multiple times, even through our lawyers. They are yet to reach out. We’ve done our best to show our good faith. With the huge support from the community, we’ve decided to reopen the website.”
We’ve tried to contact @Activision multiple times, even through our lawyers. They are yet to reach out. We’ve done our best to show our good faith.
With the huge support from the community, we’ve decided to reopen the website.
SBMMWZ is dead. Long live https://t.co/ExYtwlaw2g. pic.twitter.com/F1fIMCD2Nh— WZ Stats (@WZStatsGG) May 3, 2021
It also mentions in a post that it is moving away from any association with skill-based matchmaking – likely one of Activision’s main gripes with the site’s use of API data – and is removing its old lobby ranking tiers, which used to give lobbies difficulty ratings depending on the overall K/D of the players.
“We don’t want to be associated with the skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) anymore,” WZ Stats says. “Starting from now, we won’t be named SBMM and we will remove the lobby ranking. In the end, we are not a SBMM tracker, or a lobby tracker, but we are a Warzone stats tracker.”
While Activision is likely to take down the site again, it’s not as if the publisher is against tracking sites. A few months back, it partnered with Tracker Network – which has stats sites for other big games like Apex Legends and Valorant – to allow it to continue running CoD Tracker and use player data to provide similar stats to WZ Stats. However, the latter remains massively popular with the community – especially pro players and some of Warzone’s biggest streamers.