With all kinds of legal circumvention, the game market suddenly turned into an "online supermarket"

(Dan Tri) - Instead of selling game accounts like before, many players attach their accounts to items such as T-shirts, bicycles, and rice cookers to legitimize the sale.

"T-shirts" and "shorts" printed on game accounts

Amid the situation of tightening the sale and purchase of virtual items, including game accounts since Decree 174/2026/ND-CP, many game shops officially closed, and groups issued notices asking members to stop posting accounts buying and selling.

However, right after July 1, as noted by Dan Tri reporter, a "half funny" form of breaking the law began to appear.

No longer selling directly from the account, many people switched to selling tangible items at a price equal to the account value.

Many people can't help but be curious about the unusual but somewhat familiar items for sale in the game group (Screenshot).

Surveying groups, a series of posts introduced all kinds of products from fashion, stationery to household items such as T-shirts, shorts, backpacks, comics and even bicycles, refrigerators, rice cookers, wheelchairs, and tires.

Typically, content such as "need to sell heirloom shirts that have never been used", "sell shirts with Lien Quan game prints", "I bought a bag that no one likes, I will sell it", "need to get rid of this beloved bicycle".

At first glance, the posted content is quite similar to online marketplaces. However, when looking at the images, many people can't help but laugh when the products in the photos are often attached to photos of game account interfaces, costumes, and virtual items.

Under the posts, many people left witty comments, such as "bicycles for sale but there's a strange picture in the bottom corner", "Does the bicycle have a pattern attached to it", "the print on the shirt is so beautiful", "What is it about the shirt that makes the price so high?".

But the bicycle, T-shirt or rice cooker are actually just a "screen" for players to circumvent the rules.

I thought this was just a joke, but when I looked deeper into the comments section, account buying and selling activities were actually still taking place. Instead of comments like before, the content is now like a real online market, such as "how much is this bag?", "do you still have a shirt?", "is the pot designed with mikasa technology? (mikasa is the name of the item in the game)".

In some other posts, the seller offered incentives such as buying a shirt from me and getting a game account included. More ironically, there was a post with the content "I want to exchange this account for 100 kilos of rice in District 2" or "live in Kien Giang, whoever drinks wins, I will give the account".

Another form is to rent an account. In some posted content, many accounts do not sell but state that they rent accounts permanently at a preferential price.

Not only sellers, buyers also quickly adapted to this unusual new way of trading.

Instead of asking directly about the account, many people proactively "play the role" of buyers of regular goods.

Not only the seller, the buyer also "roles" quite actively (Screenshot).

On groups, posts appear like "need to buy a shirt for 500k", "I'm looking for household items for 2 million", "200k looking for a shirt with some feminine colors", "need to buy a shirt, budget up to 1 million, if you can see the shirt in person, even better".

So, it's still just the old group, but familiar keywords like "acc", "nick" or "sell accounts" appear less and replacing those keywords are phrases related to buying and selling common goods.

In particular, shirts, bags, backpacks or many other items are implicitly understood as game accounts, while phrases such as "check goods", "check quality", "still have tags" are used to refer to checking accounts and verifying login information.

This phenomenon does not appear alone but takes place in many groups from hundreds of thousands to more than million members with a constant number of new posts being updated.

In just a short period of time surveying, the reporter noted countless sales listings using similar methods, from accounts priced at several hundred thousand dong to accounts valued at several million dong.

This causes many game account buying and selling groups to gradually turn into "supermarkets" with all kinds of items, but behind those items are still transactions related to virtual items.

Controversy from posts hiding in the shadow of selling products

The appearance of posts that violate the above rules in groups that specialize in trading game accounts quickly became a controversial topic by internal members.

Right below many posts, there are comments expressing disagreement and giving warnings such as "posting like you're ready to pay the fine", "even though the law is out, you're still trying to do that", "If it's like this, you'll have to accept it", "you have to be fined to be afraid", "be careful, you'll still be punished if you disguise yourself like that".

However, another part believes that this form is absolutely not a violation. Many people believe that the post does not mention buying and selling accounts, just selling normal items, so it is not a violation, or asserts that if the seller and buyer do not say anything, no one will know.

In fact, regardless of the changing form, the nature of buying and selling game accounts and virtual items is still easily identifiable. In case of violation, players can be fined from 2 to 3 million VND for their behavior.

Decree 147/2024/ND-CP clearly stipulates that "Virtual items, virtual units, reward points can only be used within the scope of online video games and according to the purpose reported by the enterprise. They cannot be converted back into money, prepaid cards for mobile telecommunications services, bank cards, purchase cards, game cards, gift cards or objects with transaction value outside of online video games."

Penalties for violating regulations on players according to Decree 174/2026/ND-CP (Graphic: AI).

From this situation, it can be seen that since the Decree took effect, groups are still lax in content censorship. A series of accounts buying and selling articles still appear regularly.

In addition to posts purporting to sell tangible items, many posts selling accounts in the usual way still appear widely.

Even many websites selling game accounts still operate normally. On these sites, a series of accounts are still sold publicly with full information such as price, number of costumes, items, level and account status.

In the context of new regulations taking effect, the fact that these websites and groups are still operating shows that transactions related to game accounts still show no signs of cooling down.