Tencent cracks down on cheats in world’s top-selling video game

The Shenzhen-based internet giant is working with China’s police to root out underground rings that make and sell cheat software being used on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which has more than half of its 27 million users playing the game on the mainland

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Tencent Holdings is now developing two mobile versions of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the world’s top-selling video game. Shenzhen-based Tencent has the exclusive rights to release the popular multiplayer online battle game in China. Photo: Handout

Published: 4:57pm, 16 Jan 2018Updated: 4:57pm, 16 Jan 2018

Tencent Holdings is going after the cheaters infesting PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) as Asia’s most valuable public company prepares to bring the world’s top-selling game to China.

Ahead of the game’s debut on the mainland this year, the biggest gaming company on the planet has enlisted Chinese police to root out the underground rings that make and sell cheat software.

Shenzhen-based Tencent has helped law enforcement agents uncover at least 30 cases and arrest 120 people suspected of designing programs that confer unfair advantages, from X-ray vision (see-through walls) to auto-targeting (uncannily accurate snipers).

Those convicted in the past have done jail time.

Tencent is developing two versions of PUBG for mobile, on top of two other hastily created copycat titles.

The internet company and Korean game publisher Bluehole, whose subsidiary PUBG Corp developed the popular multiplayer online game, have a lot riding on cleaning things up for China, which accounted for more than half the game’s 27 million users, according to online tracker Steam Spy.