PUBG Mobile Fair Play: Developers issue 10 year bans

Cheating has been a plague for the online gaming scene since it began. This has become an even bigger problem in recent times with the advent of free to play games. For a lot of coders, making cheats has become their daily bread and butter with a lot of online forums selling the cheats. The problem actually became a big issue when PUBG PC was released with PUBG Corp banning millions of users. It found its way to PUBG Mobile as well. On Saturday they issued a PUBG Mobile Fair Play and Ban Notice on their blog.

They revealed that anyone found using third party apps or workarounds on their server would receive a 10 year ban. The notice also names and shames the cheaters. PUBG has published the in game names an User IDs on the same notice in their ban list and will continue to do so.

“We have always strived to deliver a gaming environment that is fair and enjoyable for each and every player and prevent cheating. We take this issue very seriously; as such, each account in violation has received a 10-year ban. We would like to remind all players about the importance of fair play, and thank you for keeping PUBG MOBILE fair and fun.

If you suspect that a player is cheating or using an unauthorized 3rd party app to dishonestly assist their gameplay in a match, please use the in-game reporting system to notify us. We investigate all such reports thoroughly and you will be informed of the findings.

We will continue to enforce stringent discipline against cheaters and publish the IDs of confirmed cheaters. Thank you for helping us make PUBG MOBILE a better game.”

Going by the list, one of the reasons for the bans is “modification of the character model”. Which means that using third party apps even for cosmetic purposes might get you banned. Most of the bans on the list have been issued to users in Asia. Even in games like Apex Legends and PUBG PC, data has shown the Asian servers see a lot of cheating.

This is a step in the right direction taken by PUBG Corp. and Tencent to nip the problem in its bud, since the accounts of players are usually linked with Google or Apple accounts, and it would be a huge hassle for users to change those.