China Has Arrested 120 People For PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Cheats

In a new report on the success of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, it’s been revealed that 120 people have been arrested in China in connection to the creation or designing of cheats for PUBG.

The report comes courtesy of Bloomberg, and covers Chinese corporation Tencent’s efforts to crack down on cheating ahead of PUBG‘s official Chinese launch. Tencent, which owns League of Legends developer Riot Games, partnered with Bluehole to release PUBG in China, and the conglomerate even made a takeover offer for PUBG developer Bluehole late last year.

The proliferation of cheats in PUBG has become a huge bone of contention for the community, so much so that players have been fiercely lobbying the developers to segregate or gate Chinese players to their own server to prevent the possibility of hackers interfering in legitimate matches.

It’s something that Tencent are keenly aware of, and they’ve reportedly been working with Chinese police to roundup the designers and creators of cheat software. Around 120 suspects were arrested from January to November last year, and Bloomberg cites that Tencent’s own messaging service is being used to market the software:

As of Tuesday, eight of PUBG’s top 10 players bear names such as “contact QQ574352672,” ironically a private account on Tencent’s own QQ messaging service through which enterprising players can procure cheat software. One vendor offered a 100 yuan ($15) program called “Jue Ying” or extreme shadow that, among other things, obscures players and grants a birds-eye view of the battleground. Another QQ dealer sent notices to customers warning them to “maintain control and keep your kills within 15 people per game,” presumably to avoid detection.

You can read the full report over at Bloomberg. It also notes that Tencent’s making two mobile ports of PUBG. Here’s some gameplay; besides the janky sniper footage, it looks relatively playable.


The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


5 responses to “China Has Arrested 120 People For PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Cheats”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *