PUBG cuts off item trading, citing third-party marketplace abuse

Personal item trading for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on Windows PC has been temporarily halted due to third-party item-selling sites, developer PUBG Corp. announced today.


“We’ve seen a few cases of players using the personal trade function to sell items using third party sites,” PUBG Corp. said in a statement. “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.”


The PUBG Steam Marketplace does not appear to be affected.


Like Marketplaces for other Steam games, the PUBG Steam Marketplace is an extra Steam wallet stuffer for players; all money made from sales stays within Steam’s ecosystem in the form of Steam Wallet money. Official Marketplaces also work as additional revenue sources for both Valve and the games involved, as they take about 3 percent of each sale’s total.


Third-party websites exist as a workaround to these problems, most commonly for Valve games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2. In short, anyone wanting real money has to arrange it off Steam. While some sites do have service or withdrawal fees up to 5 percent, users can send and withdraw real money for these transactions. It’s a lucrative business, with some skins going for literally tens of thousands of dollars.


And as PUBG items increase in value, especially with limited-edition loot crates and new weapon skins, PUBG Corp. and Valve likely don’t want these expensive sales vanishing from their ecosystem.