
Buying hacks to cheat in Apex Legends is easy in China
Some cheating tools for the hit battle royale game cost up to US$450
How do you know Apex Legends is hot? Because you can find people selling cheats for the hit battle royale game everywhere in China.
Do a quick search on some of the country’s biggest e-commerce sites and you will find countless merchants blatantly selling cheating software. Auto-aiming, zero recoil for weapons, seeing through obstacles -- it’s all there.

How Fortnite and PUBG made battle royale the hottest trend in gaming
(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba -- which also owns Taobao.)
And that’s just tip of the iceberg. Many merchants only use Taobao as an advertising platform, and will actually direct users to much less conspicuous and non-mainstream platforms where the actual transactions take place.

Another place where you can find cheating software? QQ, China’s second largest messaging app. Similar to how Facebook has groups to join, QQ has groups where this software is being passed around.
And they’re also not hard to find. I looked using the same term, “Apex Legends assistance”, and found dozens of them. And they’re massive, with many having close to 2,000 members.

PUBG, the battle royale pioneer

For more insights into China tech, sign up for our tech newsletters, subscribe to our Inside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive 2019 China Internet Report. Also roam China Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister site Abacus.
