COD Warzone: Activision shuts down a tracker site, the authors just want to collaborate
COD Warzone
The SBMM Warzone site has gained some popularity within the Call of Duty Warzone community. Using the game's APIs, it collects player statistics by analyzing their public profiles, creating a freely accessible and very useful database for a title that doesn't officially offer such a tool.Activision, however, does not. is enthusiastic. The lawyers of the videogame giant have ordered those responsible to close the site permanently by tomorrow, Monday 29 March. "Activision's lawyers contacted us asking us to shut down SBMM Warzone. Under the terms of service, we cannot use the APIs. We have tried to reach Activision more than once to become a partner, but this is our last chance," the co-creators Ben and Dav, who describe themselves as big fans of Call of Duty Warzone.
The Eurogamer editorial team had the opportunity to analyze the letter sent by the lawyers, in which it speaks of violation of copyright, terms of service and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which exposes those responsible to a financial penalty under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The fate of SBMM Warzone now seems to be sealed, but the creators of the site do not intend to give up. Convinced that they are doing nothing wrong, their only desire is to partner with Activision to provide a useful service to the whole community: "Our only goal is to become partners, and we continue to believe we can reach an agreement with Activision. We don't want to fight them, we want to become friends ", reads their heartfelt appeal.
About the game: The upcoming update of Call of Duty Warzone and Black Ops Cold War will balance numerous weapons, including the LC10 and MAC-10.
Activision demand shut down of ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ stat site
One of the most popular Call of Duty: Warzone stat tracking websites has been issued an order to shut down by lawyers representing Activision.
A tweet from SBMM Warzone account confirms that Activision have reached out. Activision have claimed that SBMM Warzone are breaching the Call of Duty: Warzone terms of service by using their API to provide in-depth stats for players.
According to further tweets from the SBMM twitter account, the letter says that the team have “until Monday to comply.” They say that the letter states that Activision want to “guarantee their player’s privacy”.
SBMM Warzone’s response to this is that they believe that becoming partners, they would be able to guarantee privacy (under GDPR rulings). As per their tweets, they have asked Activision to reach out in order to find a solution that “suits everyone.”
“Most of all, we certainly don’t want to let down the community that has come to rely on us for their Warzone match tracking,” they added.
Some responses to the thread pointed out that SBMM Warzone takes money for subscriptions, which may be part of Activision’s issue with the data aggregator. The creators of SBMM Warzone have denied this.
Speaking to Eurogamer, co-creator Ben said that he “truly believes Activision’s complaint is about privacy,” before saying: “whether it’s about privacy, SBMM itself (or any content on our website), or monetisation, there is a way to find common ground.”
In related Call of Duty news, Treyarch recently confirmed that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will receive its first update weapon tuning during the week commencing March 29.
