The revenue of global players through US dollar top up pubg mobile accounts for almost 28% as per Sensor Tower 2023 report. Among these, official channels such as Google Play and App Store offer seasonal deals. For example, during Black Friday 2023, US players are able to receive 15% more UC (in-game money) when replenishing $100, translating into a unit price reduction from $0.0095 /UC to $0.0081 /UC, with the discount rate standing at 14.7%. However, third-party platforms’ “permanent discounts” typically come with hidden pitfalls. For instance, in 2022, North American players recharged through the illegal platform “UCDeals”, which was $85 to purchase 10,000 UC (the official price is $100), but the actual arrival rate was only 72%, and 28% of users had their accounts terminated (data source: PUBG Mobile Customer Service statistics.
The payment channel handling fees and exchange rate volatility also determine the actual cost. For instance, PayPal. Its cross-border transaction fee is about 3.5%. Added to the exchange loss of the US dollar against local currencies (such as the 15% appreciation of the US dollar against the Indian rupee in 2022), the effective unit price of UC paid by players could be 19% above the official marked price. By contrast, certain local platforms such as Codashop (the official partner channel) support localized pricing. For instance, Turkish players receive a 10% discount if they pay in lira, but as the lira devalued by 40% in 2023, Krafton was forced to increase the unit price of UC by 23%, and the effective discount became 4.2%. In addition, certain platforms entice players using “exchange rate spread arbitrage.”. For instance, in the “TopUpGuru” case in the Philippines in 2021, the site offered a 7% discount by taking advantage of the median spread between the US dollar and the peso but was identified by the central bank as an illegal foreign exchange activity with a value of more than 500,000 US dollars.
Official activities are a safe way to obtain discounts. For example, during the 2023 PUBG Mobile Global Championship, users could obtain a limited skin worth $10 by recharging $50 in-game, and the overall rate of return was increased by 20%. In Krafton’s quarterly financial report, such marketing activities drove quarterly recharge revenue higher by 34%, and the user engagement rate in North America reached a high of 41%. But it should be noted that there are third-party sites that offer discounts through “black cards” (credit card fraud). For instance, in the “GameBoost” case cracked by the FBI in 2022, the site lured customers through the promise of “a $25 discount on a $100 recharge”, but the funds were pooled from 12,000 stolen credit cards. The likelihood of banning a player’s account for “fraudulent transactions” is as high as 17% (Data source: US Department of Justice Indictment).
Discounts via official channels from compliance perspective are regulated regionally. For instance, in the European Union, in-game purchases are to be stated expressly as tax-inclusive price, and this has led to failure to apply some discount plans (for example, German players must pay an additional 19% value-added tax when refilling in US dollars, voiding the 10% promotional rate). In return, customers of the Middle Eastern region are permitted to acquire value-added tax concession as well as 12% cash back against telephone credit points from regional players such as STC Saudi of pubg mobile top up, and the transaction price effectively comes down to 88% of the indicated price. But if players use a VPN to cover up their geolocations to get cheap UC, following the 2023 account ban data, the rate of detection of such activity is up to 89%, and the term of the first violator ban has been extended to 30 days from 7 days.
Long-term, when players decide to recharge in USD, they must balance the discounts against the risks. For instance, one survey of 5,000 users in 2023 reported that among those players who have been given discounts from unofficial channels, 43% have encountered anomalies in accounts with a resolving cycle of an average of 14 days, whereas the official complaint resolution was over 96% (source data: PUBG Mobile Player forum Reddit statistics). Security payment service companies such as Xsolla have reported that the efficiency of clearing funds for official discount activities they work with is 40% higher than third-party platforms, and the intercept rate of fraudulent transactions is over 99%. Therefore, however attractive short-term third-party discounts may appear, when one considers extensive security, compliance and post-sales services, the official platform continues to be a logical choice for pubg mobile top-up.