Rocket League will remove player-to-player item trades in December
It cited the policies of parent company Epic Games.
Rocket League’s player-to-player trading is going away. Developer Psyonix announced Tuesday that peer transactions will be removed from the title on December 5 at 4PM PST. The beloved feature added a game-outside-the-game element as players sought trade partners, often using third-party websites to find suitable swaps. Psyonix says it will consider those sites “fraudulent” moving forward.
Psyonix wrote that the decision was based on parent company Epic Games’ cosmetics policies, which ban sales and only allow in-game trades. “We’re making this change to align with Epic’s overall approach to game cosmetics and item shop policies, where items aren’t tradable, transferrable, or sellable,” the announcement blog post reads. However, Psyonix hints at the game’s automobiles appearing in other titles. “This opens up future plans for some Rocket League vehicles to come to other Epic games over time, supporting cross-game ownership.”
The fan response on social media was swift and fierce. “They really want this game to die, huh,” wrote u/DshadoW10 on Reddit. “This is absolute bs,” added u/MuskratAtWork. “Still z e r o communication or care for the community at all. Just a cash grab at this point. All [they] care about is selling product and items and no care at all for the health of gameplay or the community.”
Users on X (formerly Twitter) weren’t exactly thrilled either:
i thank god every day that I'm at least not this brain dead
— ً (@Volterohh) October 10, 2023
Psyonix removed loot boxes from Rocket League in 2019 after many of gaming’s most prominent companies agreed to disclose the odds of receiving rare items. The (not quite) loot boxes returned later that year with a more transparent design. At the time, Psyonix and Epic said items from post-game drops were still tradable.
Epic Games, which bought Psyonix in 2019, recently laid off 16 percent of its workforce. “This was a survival move that was necessary,” CEO Tim Sweeney said of the company’s “financial problems,” which began over the summer. In response, the Fortnite creator tweaked pricing for Unreal Engine for non-gaming uses.
