Chapter 675: Selling Accounts at a Low Price
In the cheat group, a large number of players had switched to new accounts. As for what to do with the old ones...
After some discussion, they decided to sell them at a low price.
The retail price of *PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds* was 980 yuan, a steep cost for many less affluent players. While they could play the internet cafe version at a gaming center, buying their own account was more cost-effective for long-term play.
At this point, aside from players in a few cheat groups, not many knew that *PUBG* had a "god server." If they sold these accounts at half price or even lower, someone would surely take the bait.
As for whether this would screw over others, the cheaters didn't care. Such underground transactions existed in many games—whether it was boosting or account trading, there was always a risk of being banned.
Besides, if these people had high moral standards, they wouldn't be cheating in the first place...
These accounts were gradually listed on second-hand trading websites, waiting for unsuspecting newbie buyers to take the hook.
...
At the entrance of Kule Internet Cafe in the capital city.
A young man with messy hair walked out of the internet cafe, yawning while rubbing his growling, hungry stomach.
"Ugh, I'm hungry again. Time to go home and eat a bowl of instant noodles."
The young man's name was Qin An. He rented a place near this VR internet cafe, just a short walk away.
This was near the Fifth Ring Road in the capital, close to a railway line and in a remote area, so the rent was relatively cheap. Even so, the young man still fretted over rent every three months.
Saving money was out of the question—he'd never be able to save in this lifetime. He could only scrimp and starve to barely get by.
Back at his place, it was a run-down one-bedroom apartment converted from an old layout. The room was fairly tidy, since tossing out instant noodle boxes every day wasn't much trouble, and he could just take them out on his way to the internet cafe...
The VR internet cafe also had a daily limit of seven hours. Besides, Qin An didn't have enough money to spend every day at the VR cafe. He could only pick up odd jobs occasionally and ask his family for money to survive.
Back home, Qin An opened his buzzing laptop and idly browsed the official forum of *PUBG*.
He loved playing FPS games, especially *PUBG*, so he'd go hungry every day just to play at the VR internet cafe.
Qin An had decent FPS talent and was a bit of a local celebrity back in his hometown. He came to the capital hoping to join a reliable game club as a pro player. If that didn't work, he'd settle for a studio job.
But as it turned out, even studio jobs were hard to come by. Qin An felt utterly screwed and could only take things one step at a time.
While scrolling through recruitment info, he also browsed the *PUBG* official forum.
Then, he spotted a post—an account for sale.
The post had been deleted by the admin shortly after it was posted, but Qin An followed the link to a specific site. It was a platform dedicated to game item trading, which generally ensured authenticity.
In reality, these sites just acted as middlemen to guarantee the transaction and standardize the process, preventing buyers or sellers from getting scammed.
Qin An saw the price and his eyes went wide.
A *PUBG* account for only 300 yuan!
He looked more closely. The account had clearly been played for a while—it had some decent-looking clothes, and from the lobby screenshot, most of the weapons were unlocked.
(When players obtain a new weapon, it appears in the lobby's ruined scene, allowing them to practice with it. It doesn't affect in-game functionality.)
Qin An was puzzled. Why sell a perfectly good account?
Was it a stolen account? Yeah, it had to be—otherwise, why sell it so cheap? But it probably wasn't a big deal, since the site guaranteed it, so he wasn't too worried about being scammed. And the official system banned cheaters instantly; if this account had ever used cheats, it wouldn't still be active.
If it were another game, Qin An might hesitate—buying it only to get banned later would be a huge loss. But with *PUBG*, if the account wasn't banned now, it probably never would be.
Even though it looked like a trap, Qin An couldn't resist the temptation. After all, playing *PUBG* at the VR internet cafe with your own account versus without was two different prices. Buying this account would save him several hundred yuan every month.
Hesitating, Qin An sent a message to the seller: "I want to buy this *PUBG* account. Can you lower the price a bit more?"
...
On the other side, these "god accounts" weren't selling well.
Most people who genuinely wanted to buy the game had already linked their own ID cards, and few were willing to risk buying a stolen account to play.
Plus, pricing was awkward. If the discount wasn't big enough, why take the risk? If it was too cheap, buyers would get suspicious—why sell it so low? Something fishy must be going on!
So, after several days, not all of these accounts had been sold...
Fortunately, there were still some players as broke as Qin An, so they'd eventually sell out.
Moreover, seeing that Qin An was genuinely interested, the seller even knocked off another 200 yuan.
These sellers were eager to offload the accounts. After all, these accounts had already been flagged by the official system. What if Chen Mo, in a good mood one day, permanently banned them all? Then they'd lose any chance to recoup their losses.
As for how long it would take Qin An to realize he'd been placed on the god server... that wasn't their problem.
Meanwhile, the cheat group's admins were scrambling.
News of the god server spread quickly within the cheat community. Suddenly, every cheater was panicking, and *PUBG* cheat sales plummeted.
Buy cheats and get sent to the god server to be tormented? What's the difference between that and being banned?
The cheat makers were also panicking—how much income were they losing every day!
But panicking was useless. They found themselves completely helpless!
Although there were cheat-making companies both domestically and abroad, the foreign ones were generally more advanced. Even the cheats for *Overwatch* and other FPS games had originally come from overseas.
In this parallel world, cheats and artificial intelligence were closely linked. Domestic AI was managed by the Game Committee, making it hard for cheat companies to get the relevant code. But abroad, it was a different story.
In fact, most mainstream cheats on the market were more or less connected to Origin.
Domestic cheat companies basically modified foreign cheats and sold them. Faced with this situation, they could only hope that foreign developers would create stronger cheats that could bypass *PUBG*'s detection system.
But the biggest problem was that no one knew how *PUBG* actually detected cheats!