"The experience was nothing but pure frustration and humiliation. The game simply moved too fast for me to really be able to understand what was going on around me. The players I was thrown in with were so much better than me, that I was basically little more than roving target practice for them. But to add insult to the injury, I wasn't even able to really learn anything from the deaths. It just seemed that people (quite literally) sprung up out of the ground...and I was dead before I could react, or even figure out what I had done wrong. I put up with the humiliation for about a week, before I simply quit. THAT is what CBMM creates. A MASSIVE barrier to entry (paid in frustration and humiliation) by new players...which eventually reaches a point where the gaem can no longer replace its losses...and it stagnates and shrinks." This seems to be the point that every pro SBMM post boils down to. The situation you described isn't due to CBMM but due to the fact that you cant handle losing in a game. You believe that you should be able to step into a game and start winning right off the bat, even if its a game that you're new in. Had you actually kept playing you would have seen your performance improve gradually until you would do well more often than not. "Which means a game that can't grow...and has difficulty replacing the players it loses to attirition" You know what else hurts a games ability to replace players, a poor quality game. What do you think is more likely to deter a player from picking up a game? a) Don't buy the game because I got pubstomped in it b) Don't buy the game because connection quality in the game is crap and gets worse the better/ longer you play the game. Call me crazy but "B" will get me to reconsider a game much faster than "A".