Rocket League is removing player-to-player item trading

Psyonix has announced that Rocket League will be getting rid of all of its player-to-player trading systems before the end of 2023. “Player-to-Player Trading will be removed from Rocket League on December 5 at 4 p.m. PST,” says the official announcement. The good news, though, is that you’ll still have an opportunity to trade in duplicate and/or unwanted Core, Tournament, and Blueprint Items for a “random new item of higher rarity,” according to the attached FAQ.

Psyonix also explains that item lending was not a supported action, with all trades considered final. The support team cannot help players reverse trades, with that in mind, and as there will be no official way to trade items in Rocket League from December 5 onwards, any third-party services offering trades from that point on will be considered fraudulent. Finally, Psyonix has also pointed out that trades are not getting rolled back on December 5. Instead, the players’ inventories will be locked in, and the player-to-player trading feature will be permanently removed from the game.

Why is Rocket League removing player-to-player trading?

This all may come as a bit of a surprise to some, given that Rocket League used to host a fairly comprehensive item-trading scene back when it was available on Steam. The whole system was very similar to those of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or Team Fortress 2, both of which have proven remarkably successful over the past decade or so. After Psyonix was bought out by Epic Games, however, the game was taken off sale on Steam, shifting over to a totally free-to-play model instead, and item trading was the last holdover from that era of Rocket League‘s history.

“We’re [removing player-to-player trading] to align with Epic’s overall approach to game cosmetics and item shop policies, where items aren’t tradable, transferrable, or sellable,” said Psyonix. “This opens up future plans for some Rocket League vehicles to come to other Epic games over time, supporting cross-game ownership.”

Psyonix is, at least, being totally up-front about the entire ordeal. Players are given plenty of time to trade away over the next couple of weeks, though it should be obvious that the game’s economy is about to undergo massive changes in the coming days. Not necessarily for the better, of course.