PUBG Item Trades Turned Off on Steam Due to 'Abuse of the System': PUBG Corp

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) developer PUBG Corp has removed access to personal trading of all PUBG items on Steam. The reason for this is because certain users have been abusing the personal trade function to sell items to third-party sites. It seems to be an attempt to combat a situation Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) has suffered from in the past with third-party sites abusing Valve's loopholes to create a cottage industry that promoted gambling. This follows the studio's work to stem cheating by cooperating with authorities in China to arrest those responsible for PUBG hack programs.

"Starting today, we're going to temporarily turn off access to "personal trades" for all PUBG items. Some context: Normally, players can trade items using either the "Market trade" or "Personal trade" features. "Market trade" lets you sell items through the Steam market system. "Personal trade’" is supposed to allow friends to trade items without any costs attached," a post on PUBG Corp's Steam page reads.

The developer states that it's looking for a way to prevent abuse of personal trades and has declined to give a timeline as to when PUBG personal item trades will return on Steam.

"Recently, though, we’ve seen a few cases of players using the personal trade function to sell items using third party sites. This is essentially an abuse of the system. To prevent this, we're temporarily turning off personal trades while we search for a better solution. Once we figure out a way to prevent abuse, the restriction will be lifted."

Earlier in the week, PUBG Corp revealed that it is aggressively pursuing action against its cheaters. It has confirmed that 15 people were arrested for “developing and selling hacking/cheating programs that affect PUBG” on PC. What’s more is that the malicious code, including Trojan horse software, was added as a part of these programs to steal user information. PUBG Corp plans to continue cracking down on hacking and cheating programs as well as those who make them, until its player base can battle it out in a fair environment.

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