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>Why so many game devs are enamored with Elo when it comes to ranking is a bit bizarre.

Probably just Occam's Razor, they don't know of or care to make something better and can just pull Elo off the shelf.

Another example would be competitive overwatch where the developer's stated goal was an equal distribution of rated players throughout the various ranks (bronze/silver/gold/platinum/diamond/masters/grandmasters). They tweaked the variables until they got their desired distribution, lumping the majority of players in gold and plat. Ranking up became an exercise in either playing hundreds of hours or starting a brand new account with fresh MMR.

Predictably this led to an explosion in boosting and win-trading services.

> the developer's stated goal was an equal distribution of rated players throughout the various ranks

and

> They tweaked the variables until they got their desired distribution, lumping the majority of players in gold and plat

seem to be opposites. What am I missing here?

It also probably doesn't even matter since the main problem is players intentionally losing to rank down and then smash lower rank players.

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