Rocket League recently announced that it will no longer allow players to trade cosmetic items with each other effective December 2023. Naturally, the news invited a lot of negative responses and criticism from the community.
Rocket League made the announcement via a blog post titled, ‘Removing Player-to-Player Trading in December.’ The post read, “Player-to-Player Trading will be removed from Rocket League on December 5 at 4 pm PST.” It further stated “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. This opens up future plans for some Rocket League vehicles to come to other Epic games over time, supporting cross-game ownership.”
Rocket League’s item trade was very similar to that of Counter-Strike. The best stuff arrived in loot boxes which were accessible with keys. Similarly, a premium item that became a commodity could be used as money in player trades.
Epic Games acquired Rocket League’s developer Psyonix in 2019. Epic Games retired the crate and key system in Rocket League. Although crates are now free to open, however, unlike other items they include blueprints for items that can be crafted by spending Credits, which was the newly introduced premium currency.
Similarly, Psyonix also introduced an Item Shop, wherein a rotating selection of cosmetics can be directly purchased for Credits.
Community reacts to Rocket League’s removal of Item Trading
Naturally, the fans were not happy with the decision. And a stream of backlash started on the internet over the decision. Twitter threads, Reddit conversations, and a lot more evidently displayed the fans’ discontent.
A Reddit user named ‘ShubinMoon’ wrote, “Why would they want to do this? They’re killing a good chunk of the community with this move.” Another user, ‘grimlocoh’ wrote, “Epic destroying every game they their hands on and then surprised they are bleeding money year after year. Must be those game designer’s and artists’ fault, let’s fire them, certainly, it is not Pig Sweaty’s fault.”
Rocket League: Removing Player-To-Player Trading in December
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The players are so upset that several users have even started online petitions against the decision on Change.org. One of the biggest petitions for these was started by a user known as Nick Wallgren. The said petition has accumulated over 4,500 signatures ever since the announcement yesterday. Wallgren mentioned in the petition description that the removal of trading by Psyonix is an “absolute disgrace”, and that the Rocket League team needs to rethink this decision immediately.