Your PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) items cannot currently be gifted to your friends. The developers have disabled trading because some users exploited it.
The developers of the battle royale shooter “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” have decided to temporarily restrict item trading. Third-party providers have apparently gained advantages that will no longer be tolerated.
There were two types of item trading, currently only one
If you want to “trade” items from PUBG, there are currently two options: In-person or via the market. With personal trading, you can directly place your items into your friends’ inventory without any cost. If you prefer to sell your items for Steam credit on the market, you will incur a small fee.
What happened? In a news post, the developers explain that personal trading has been temporarily disabled for all PUBG items.
Why was the feature disabled? The PUBG team noticed some cases where players misuse the personal trading function to sell items to third parties.
Why is this a problem? Players circumvent the fee of about 3% that would normally apply to selling items on the market. The PUBG team sees this as a clear abuse of the personal trade function.
How does PUBG plan to tackle the problem? The feature has now been temporarily disabled while the team searches for a solution. The developers are trying to find a way to prevent abuse of the system.
When can players trade for free again? As soon as the developers find a solution, the function will be restored. However, they could not provide an approximate timeline yet.
How does trading with third-party sites work via the friends feature?
Third-party websites that profit from trading virtual goods have existed for a long time. They are already known from CS:GO, DOTA 2, or Team Fortress 2. In these games, there are cosmetic items like weapon skins that can reach a high monetary value due to their rarity.
To maximize profit from trading, third parties and players are reluctant to pay the 3% fee applicable for sales in the Steam market. Thus, they negotiate sales directly on the website, add each other as friends on Steam, and then trade without costs.
This is also a benefit for players who do not want $500 worth of Steam credit for their rare skin but would rather see the money in their bank account. In typical sales on the Steam market, the money becomes Steam credit and stays within the ecosystem.
Therefore, it is logical that PUBG Corp. and Valve are now taking action against losing the proceeds from these valuable skins from their own ranks.
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