UPDATE 29TH MARCH 2021: As predicted, SBMMWarzone.com has shut down. The website is now blank.
“We’ve met Activision’s demand and have shut down our website,” the team behind SBMMWarzone.com tweeted. “Your Warzone stats are no longer available. We still believe we can reach an agreement with Activision to provide you with the stats you love. Hey Activision, let’s partner up.”
ORIGINAL STORY 27TH MARCH 2021: Activision has ordered the creators of SBMMWarzone.com to shut the website down by Monday.
The Belgium-based co-creators of SBMM Warzone said lawyers representing Activision sent a cease and desist demanding the website be shut down, citing privacy concerns.
In this letter, which Eurogamer has verified, the lawyers claim SBMM Warzone violates Activision’s API terms of use, infringes Activision’s copyright, violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and exposes SBMM Warzone’s creators to fines under GDPR. The letter goes on to say SBMM Warzone must be shut down within seven days of its receipt, which was 22nd March. We’ve contacted Activision for comment.
SBMM Warzone uses the Call of Duty API to obtain player data and then provide useful statistics to players. Crucially, it organises Warzone lobbies into skill-based ranks, which players use to determine the overall skill of a lobby they’ve just played in. In lieu of an official Warzone ranking system, players have flocked to SBMM Warzone in a bid to better understand Call of Duty’s mysterious skill-based matchmaking system.
One of the creators of the website, Ben, told Eurogamer he understands Activision’s concern. “When we get their data through their API, they don’t control it anymore,” Ben said.
Ben explained that in order for SBMM Warzone to obtain this data, the player must have their profile set to public, and know their BattleNet, PSN or Xbox username. The website then obtains kills, deaths, number of wins and other stats, such as a list of the player’s matches and the detail of a match. “We get nothing sensitive,” Ben insisted, “and only from public players.”