[Update: Jan. 03] Axie Infinity win trading (or cheating) issue for higher MMR officially acknowledged

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…

Original story (published on December 29, 2021) follows:

Axie Infinity is a unique NFT based game developed by Sky Mavis and has more than 2 million active daily players. It uses Ethereum based cryptocurrencies called Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) and Smooth Love Potion (SLP).

The game encourages players to trade and battle against each other to raise, battle, and trade various creatures called Axies.

Instead of a free-to-play model adopted by the majority of games, it operates on a pay-to-play-to-earn model and grants players tokens that can be sold or bought on Binance or exchange as NFTs.

Having said that, Axie Infinity players are now complaining that some are indulging in win trading to get higher MMR and secure a position on the leaderboard.

If you don’t know what win trading is, it involves queueing up for a match with friends in different lobbies so you get matched against each other. Then one of them throws the game so the other one can increase their MMR.

Wintrading should be punished with a ban, especially here, hundreds of players are working hard to place high and get great AXS rewards from arena. I don’t understand how people can defend him here and don’t see this as cheating lol. @AxieInfinity please do something against it
(Source)

If allowed, this event would be a dangerous predicate for the community to abuse win trading. This will ruin the competitive integrity of the game. The leader board will be illusory, and would be unfair to the people who grind their MMR in the LEGITIMATE way. + axs rewards are ~
(Source)

While this tactic is not effective at lower elo, those on the top of the leaderboard often exploit it to push their MMR. Many are now frustrated since the top 1K players on the leaderboard get $AXS prizes.

Axie Infinity players say they want Sky Mavin to look into the issue and take strict action to punish those indulged in win trading.

Fortunately, Andrew Campbell, the Program Lead at Sky Mavin has shed some light on the matter and said they take competitive integrity very seriously. Moreover, it looks like they are currently investigating the situation.

We are aware of the recent reports of win-trading taking place on the Axie leaderboard. We take competitive integrity very seriously and are currently conducting an investigation into the situation.
(Source)

Win trading is a pretty common practice in several games and it’s very hard to shut it down entirely. However, game developers can take strict action against those involved so others think twice before doing so.

08:50 am (IST): Axie Infinity has since come out to notify affected players that they have taken action against the parties involved in this “win-trading” issue.

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Gaming Section so be sure to follow them as well.

Featured image source: Axie Infinity

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