It seems juggernauts in the gaming industry can’t stop making decisions that set-off a chain reaction of woe throughout the community. From Nintendo taking the axe to 3DS & Wii U servers, to Unity backtracking from making a mess of its terms of service, now here comes Epic Games with the decision to kill player-to-player trading in one of the biggest F2P games out there, Rocket League.
This announcement was made via the game’s official website and opens with an explanation that clearly points to Epic’s policies being the result of this decision by the dev team over at Psyonix.
Never say “it can’t get worse”
“We’re making this change to align with Epic’s overall approach to game cosmetics and item shop policies, where items aren’t tradeable, transferable, or sellable,” says Psyonix. It further adds, “This opens up future plans for some Rocket League vehicles to come to other Epic games over time, supporting cross-game ownership.”
As it stands, this big change to the game’s economy will take place on December 5, 2023 at 4 PM PST (7 EST.)
While item trading doesn’t really affect the gameplay of Rocket League, it does have an effect on the more active members of the community. Item trading is a major component of the game to a lot of players, so its removal will have big ramifications. This is especially true for that of dedicated Rocket League trading websites and servers, which have relatively large member counts.
In fact, Psyonix’s announcement clearly points to such repositories in its FAQ section. Answering the matter of what will happen to such websites/servers, the studio frankly states: “there will be no way to trade items with any player or between accounts. Websites or servers advertising such services are fraudulent and have no connection to Psyonix or Epic Games.”
No mincing words here, it seems. That FAQ also contains answers for other important questions such as what to do with duplicate/unwanted items. The answer is simply that available “trade-in system for Core Items, and Blueprints will allow players to continue trading in eligible duplicate or unwanted items to receive a random new item of higher rarity.”
Community chaos
It should almost go without saying that the community has not been shy about sharing its thoughts on this move by Psyonix and Epic. Over on X (formerly, Twitter,) one of the top responses comes from user @ChilyRL, who is a very active player of the game:
Doom-scrolling the rest of that thread uncovers more and more disgruntled players who find this news beyond upsetting.
If one might be confused as to why Psyonix has found the need to bend Epic’s policies, keep in mind that both Psyonix and Rocket League are the property of the major game publisher. This came to be back in May 2019, when Epic Games acquired Psyonix for an undisclosed amount.
Even if the studio itself understands the frustration that’s been caused by this announcement, unless Epic gives the go-ahead (which has a strong chance of not happening,) the developers’ hands are totally tied.
