PUBG Hits 10M Sales, Unsure How To Address AFK Cheaters

While it was practically inevitable, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds hitting 10 million sales is still a huge reason to celebrate. Unfortunately, this milestone is marred by the many controversies surrounding the game, especially players who do Away From Keyboard (AFK) farming. To make matters worse, it seems the developers are at a loss as to how to deal with these cheaters.

That 10 million milestone applies only to the PC as well, so it’s expected that it will grow even more once the game hits the Xbox One. What’s more, instead of temporarily deposing DOTA 2 as the most-played game on Steam, it is currently the official titleholder, holding a peak of 962,000 concurrent players, Gamespot reports.

It’s worth noting that the record for highest concurrent players is over 1 million on Steam, which is held by DOTA 2. It’s expected that PUBG is well on its way to breaking this record soon. Considering that the game isn’t even officially out yet, this is an even more impressive achievement by Brendan Greene and his team.

Speaking of Green and his team, however, it would seem that they are having trouble finding a way to deal with idlers, Kotaku reports. AFK farming is basically when players join a game but don’t participate. This is because, even if they die without a single kill, they still earn some in-game currency.

The developers have already acknowledged the existence of these cheaters and have promised that they are going to be dealt with. As to how they would go about doing this, options currently include rebalancing BP to favor players who actually get more involved or penalize players who are AFK for an inordinate amount of time.

Those seem like good options, actually, but it’s a good bet that some players will still find ways to complain. It would be a shame if PUBG ends up like the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community, where cheating is rampant.