Pumping game accounts in China: a serious business and a headache for developers

If the game becomes popular enough, players will most likely find ways to break its rules.



Some non-standard approaches to the gameplay are harmless, while others destroy the game process as a whole. The most notorious example is the use of cheats - programs or scripts that give players an unfair advantage by using impossible functions in the game, for example, looking through walls or well-aimed shots from long distances.



Less well known, but also very destructive, is the upgrading (boosting) of the rating for the selection of opponents (match making rating, MMR). When boosting, strong players participate in matches under the accounts of other players in order to improve the in-game performance of these accounts. Like cheats, boosting itself turned into an industry.

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MMR busting is mainly found in multiplayer games, where high ratings serve as insignia and give players the opportunity to come together face to face with more experienced opponents. The most obvious example of such games is the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre. The MMR Boosting, which developers around the world have been struggling to fight with, has left a heavy imprint on the two most popular Tencent games: League of Legends and Honor of Kings.



Tencent has been struggling with MMR cheats and boosting for a long time, suspending or bathing all the accounts seen in their use, but recently the company has increased its efforts to eliminate such incidents in its most high-yielding games. In addition to the removal of non-compliant accounts, the gaming industry giant released a new set of rules last month. It says that streamers are prohibited from distributing information about software and services that could violate the integrity of the company's games. As a result of constant cleansing, the cheats and their distribution channels were reduced to dark nooks of private groups in messengers. However, MMR booster services continue to thrive in public view.

Supply and demand

MMR pumping services, called “dailian” in Chinese, can be obtained on platforms such as Dailiantong and Dailianmao. Customers, who are called “boostees”, can place orders on the platform for a certain increase in the rating, after which each order is given to the “booster” (booster). All platforms state that they use “professional” boosters and offer customers a money back guarantee if boosters fail to fulfill an order.



Similar services are also common on online shopping platforms, such as Taobao and Tmall; The stores brag about the quality of their services and send timely text alerts to customers about the beginning and end of the boosting. Some performers publish along with the product description photos of rooms filled with boosters; one store even advertises itself as the “pillar of the MMR busting industry,” which should be the rest.



MMR booster prices in China are platform dependent, but they are very profitable compared to what players would pay in countries like the United States. Boost MMR for League of Legends on non-Chinese servers from the lowest to the highest division stands at Proboosting.net for $ 1,315, while a similar pumping for Dailianmao costs only 1,953 yuan (about $ 290).



Sales volumes on platforms are equally impressive. The Dailiantong platform states that over the past five years, it has taken 30 million orders that carried out more than 500,000 boosters. Between March 1 and 19 of this year, the top four Tmall stores offering MMR boosting for League of Legends sold more than 6.7 million yuan in services.

Tencent Reaction

MMR Boosting can do real money damage to game developers and publishers. Game analyst Cui Cheney from IHS Markit, an information services company, says that while MMR boosting is less damaging to games than cheats, it creates chaos. “MMR boosting can affect aspects such as user diversity and user experience, and also make it harder for new users to enter the game.”



In June 2018, Tencent released an official statement, explaining on its game safety website what League of Legends is boosting, and talking about the penalties for this behavior: accounts that break the rules for the first time will be suspended from playing for a week, those who violate the second time will be suspended for a month with the cancellation of receiving the prize of the end of the season, and multiple violators will be banned forever. If a multiple offender registers other accounts and continues to violate the rules, the company will consider the need for a hardware ban of his computer.



Tencent then periodically issued notifications listing the accounts that were monthly banned for MMR boosting. Since January 2019, the company has increased the frequency of publication of applications from one month to a week and significantly increased the number of suspended accounts. For the whole of December there were only about 10 thousand suspensions, but in January the number rose to 25 thousand and continues to grow; in February, almost 40 thousand accounts were suspended. A Tencent spokesperson tied such a leap to the start of the new season of League of Legends.



Tencent does not tell the technical details of the MMR boosting detection process, but reports that it makes a decision based on a variety of factors, including users' behavioral patterns within the game and complaints from other players.



Tencent's harsh results were mixed. Four of the best Tmall stores selling MMR boosts for League of Legends received thousands of complaints about the suspension of accounts after purchasing their services. However, in most comments boosters praise for the rapid execution of orders and without any penalties.

Opinions of players

Tencent pointed out three reasons for punishing League of Legends boosters and pumped players: harm to the gameplay, devaluing other people's work and exposing account security. The company’s statement of June 2018 explains that League of Legends selects opponents with similar skills to players; when a user plays an account with a pumped MMR, he fails and eventually becomes a burden for his team. However, some players have reported that they are more annoyed by experienced boosters who participate in low level matches, because they turn matches of players with equal skills into one-sided “slaughter”.



Although players generally view boosters negatively, many use selective complaints. Peng Ying, a 21-year-old student from Nanjing Audit University in East China's Jiangsu Province, says he always complains about his booster opponents because they "can easily handle our top-line player." However, Peng admits that he does not send complaints about boosters when they are on his team. "Usually they are much more experienced than us, this is real value for the team."



Other players just do not want to mess around with complaints, saying that the game should not be taken so seriously. Fourth-year student Qian Lingfeng of Southwest Jiaotong University, Sichuan Province and an experienced player in League of Legends told us that he never complains about boosters, even if they are obvious. “Boosters also need to live on something. You shouldn’t be angry with them, ”he says.

Gray zone of law

Tencent never allowed the development and use of cheats. For example, players who have been caught cheating League of Legends will immediately receive a three-year suspension of accounts. According to the game security website , in 2017, Tencent collaborated with the police to arrest more than 120 suspects who participated in the development and distribution of cheats for the company's games. In 2018, the number of arrested suspects increased to more than 300, their incomes amounted to about 151 million yuan.



Unlike the pursuit of cheaters and cheat developers, Tencent does not take any serious measures to stop MMR boosting, with the exception of suspending violators' accounts. She does not touch either the company or the platform providing such services. According to lawyers, this situation has developed because the development and distribution of cheats are illegal, while the degree of legality of MMR boosting is still incomprehensible.



“Cheats are a malicious code, and their developers disrupt the operation of computer information systems, which is a criminal offense. They also illegally hack computer information systems to obtain data, which violates the seventh amendment of the Criminal Code of China, ”lawyer Zou Yi told us from the Nanjing office of Denton Law.



In addition to these two crimes, creators and distributors of cheats can also be accused of illegal business activities and copyright infringement, lawyer He Jing from the Beijing branch of Merits & Tree Law Offices told us.



Regulation of boosting MMR and similar services introduced, for example, in South Korea, but so far absent in China. Without clear legislation, game developers and publishers in practice may limit these services only on the basis of the terms of the user agreement.





Lawyers are still arguing about the legality of MMR boosting, and, according to He, experts are leaning in both directions. One side says that the services are legal, because both boosters and pumped players conclude a service agreement that does not harm the third party. From this point of view, publishers can punish violators by suspending their accounts, but they have no right to take legal action.



Arguments of the opposite side are similar to the arguments of Tencent. She claims that boosting MMR harms the gaming environment, the rules and the balance, which can lead to a decrease in the number of players and a decrease in the life of the games. Busting violates the normal state of the market and competition, is detrimental to the income and interests of game publishers, that is, violates unfair competition laws.



Potentially, the priority of one of the points of view can determine a lawsuit, but so far there have been no such lawsuits. “At the moment, no developer or publisher of games has filed a lawsuit against MMR busting service providers for violating laws against unfair competition,” He says. “And since there were no lawsuits, the judiciary cannot decide on this issue.”



Tencent did not give a direct answer to the question of whether it intends to use legal measures to reduce the number of MMR busing service providers, but its representative said that the company reserves the right to “hold accountable those who threaten the safety of the game and illegally receive revenues ".