Competitive online games have to constantly tweak their content, from character strengths and weaknesses in fighting games to weapon statistics like reload time in first-person shooters, to keep the experience balanced for players. They also have to combat cheating, as seen by companies like Blizzard banning thousands of Overwatch accounts throughout 2020. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Mobile has taken things to a whole other level by banning over 2.2 million accounts in just one week.
Popular battle royales like PUBG and Epic Games’ Fortnite have huge player counts with sometimes rampant cheating; and even at higher levels, games like Apex Legends have banned top players following accusations. According to a post by the PUBG Mobile Twitter account Friday, the reasons for its huge amount of bans between August 20 and August 27 included x-ray vision, auto-aim, speed cheats, and “modification of character model[s].”
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On top of the 2.2 million bans of accounts, PUBG Mobile also announced that it permanently suspended nearly 1.5 million individual devices from accessing the game. PUBG developers previously discussed their anti-cheat plans for 2020 in a blog post following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which led to a subsequent shift for major events to become totally digital.
Among those steps to combat cheating in the main game and its mobile spin-off are the addition of two-factor authorization, planned adjustments to improve hack vulnerabilities in weapons, vehicles, and characters, as well as bolstered anti-cheat software. The end of Friday’s post also comments on improved anti-cheat measures being part of PUBG Mobile‘s “New Era,” the version 1.0 update releasing in September.
PUBG Mobile has been differentiating itself from the main game, which began its eighth season of content at the end of July, through independent updates adding unique content. For example, an exclusive PUBG Mobile map called Livik was added to the battle royale last month, giving players reason to potentially jump into that version over its PC and console equivalent.
Even with that unique content, the mobile battle royale has been scrutinized for more than just a prevalence of hackers and cheating in recent months. PUBG Mobile was almost banned in India because its privacy policy led to questions of national security in the South Asian country, primarily in the way data was gathered and stored. However, PUBG Corporation made changes to keep this from happening.
Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds Mobile is available now for Android and iOS.
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