Call of Duty: Warzone stats tracker app back online after successful talks with Activision
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A popular third-party Call of Duty: Warzone stats tracker app is back online after its creators held successful talks with Activision.
Warzone Tracker was one of a number of overlay apps on the Overwolf network that were disabled earlier this year following an update to the battle royale.
This update, issued in response to an Activision API terms of service breach by a separate app on the Overwolf framework, had the knock-on effect of blocking Overwolf entirely, preventing its use while the PC version of Warzone was in use.
Uri Marchand, CEO and co-founder of Overwolf, told Eurogamer he held talks with representatives from both Activision and Raven in a bid to understand the nature of the issue.
Overwolf then made a change that means the Warzone Tracker app and Warzone itself are no longer integrated technically, and thus the app acts like any other piece of software on a PC.
Warzone Tracker displays the kill/death ratio and number of kills on a squad basis in real-time during a match, which means players can get a sense of what they're up against in the pre-game lobby. Squad averages are based on the available career stats of each squad member, but Warzone Tracker does not display individual player K/D ratios.
Marchand denied the app could be used for boosting, to dodge queues or cheat Warzone's controversial skill-based matchmaking system. "No," he said, "it's not offering something like that at all."
Players had hoped Warzone Tracker would help them spot potential cheaters in a pre-game lobby (Warzone has faced an uphill battle against Warzone cheaters ever since the game came out), but according to Asaf Livne, head of growth and business development at Tracker Network, this is not the intention of the app.
"Our app never showed you, 'ah, this player is a cheater or might be a cheater.' The app is only providing raw data about top players in the match with some basic stats about the history of the player, but nothing more," Livne told Eurogamer.
"It's all raw data and we are not pinpointing the users to assume anything about the players in the match."
The goal of Warzone Tracker, Livne said, is to provide immediate post-game analysis for "personal performance review between matches", and letting you track the stats of your teammates and opponents in your current match in real-time.
This agreement does not mean third-party developers can develop "anything they want", Overwolf inisisted. "We've discussed strict guidelines for app creation, and we'd like to emphasise that any app that may involve boosting, queue dodging, matchmaking interference or GDPR breaches will not be allowed."
Warzone - as well as Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare and Treyarch's Black Ops Cold War - have all come under fire for the impact of SBMM, which has sparked a "reverse-boosting" craze - that is, deliberately dying in order to negatively impact your K/D and, in turn, end up in lower-skilled lobbies.
In March, SBMMWarzone.com shut down after lawyers representing Activision sent a cease and desist. In a letter, which Eurogamer verified, the lawyers claimed SBMM Warzone violated Activision's API terms of use, infringed Activision's copyright, violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and exposed SBMM Warzone's creators to fines under GDPR.
As for the future of Warzone Tracker, Livne said Tracker Network is working on adding new features such as top teammates stats.