Accbuyers in Dota 2: Why do players buy accounts?

Accbuyers (account-buyers) are people who buy game accounts. In the context of Dota 2, players buy accounts with a certain MMR, or other characteristics that may be valuable to them.

What are the reasons why players buy Dota 2 accounts:

• A desire to play at a certain rating level, which often does not match their skill - For players who find it difficult to up their MMR on their own, buying an account with a high rating will allow instant access to games with stronger opponents. However, accounts with extremely low MMR (down to 0) are often purchased if a player wants to play against weaker opponents. Such accounts are often purchased by streamers in order to create entertaining content (for example, to perform the Challenge “From zero to Immortal”).
• Ban Avoidance - Players who get banned from their main account (e.g. for toxic behavior or cheats) can buy a new account to continue playing.
• Saves time - Creating and leveling up a new account (for example, to the level at which ranked matchmaking opens) takes time. Buying an account will allow you to play ranked games immediately.
• Cosmetic items - Some players buy accounts in order to get exclusive Arcana, Immortal and other items that cannot be traded or bought. However, the MMR, on such an account may also not match the level of the buyer, leading to an imbalance in ranked games.

Why it's bad?

• Game Balance Disruption - Players playing at a level other than their actual skill level can significantly degrade the game experience for both weaker and stronger opponents.
• Violation of Valve Rules - Buying, selling, and trading accounts is prohibited by Valve rules. Accounts involved in such activities may be banned.
• Risk of Scam - Account buyers risk losing money due to scam. Sellers can regain access to a sold account by contacting Steam support.

The problem of account-buying exacerbated with the release in Dota 2 MMR doubledown tokens in unlimited quantities (with the event “Crownfall”). Some people began to actively engage in boosting accounts “with sand” (using the program Sandboxie, which will allow you to run applications in an isolated virtual environment, due to which you can open the game from several accounts on one device). Thus, they can prepare up to 10 accounts for sale at the same time by "wintrading" - 2 groups of 5 accounts are formed and a rating search is launched on an unpopular server, where there is a high probability of these two groups getting into the same game. In one team, all “players” double MMR points and win. The second group loses without doubling, and in the next game the operation is repeated, but in reverse, so that each account came to +25 MMR for 2 games. Bots are often used for these operations.

The ease of raising the account to a high level, made them cheaper and more accessible. And the demand for accounts with MMR close to zero led to the formation of groups that specifically downgrade accounts in order to sell them (“deboosters”), which led to the deterioration of matchmaking and at low MMR.

"Wintraders" started to become extremely common in regular ranked matches at high MMR as well. For example, if 2 people who are in the same party did not get into the same team on Immortal-draft, they agree on who will ruin the game and lose 25 MMR, and who will win and get 50 due to doubledown.

The screenshot below shows the brightest example of “wintrading”. Two such party met in one game. Muerta with the Ofrenda facet, which allows her to keep up with Nature`s Prophet's feed with his Teleportation, was trying to win the game for her friend on Monkey King, who was on the enemy team. NP, in turn, was also trying to wintrade MMR to an enemy Anti-Mage he is in a group with.

The emergence of a huge number of accbuyers and wintraders has caused the quality of ranked games to drop to an all-time low. According to many players' claims, matchmaking has never been so unplayable. And even the wave of bans that occurred with the release of Frostivus 2024 did not change the situation much, after which Roman Resolut1on Fominok announced the creation of a closed league, where professional and semi-professional players will be able to play normal matches without wintraders and accbuyers, as matchmaking from Valve has become completely unplayable.

At the moment, accbuyers are a serious problem for the Dota 2 community, disrupting the balance and worsening the experience. A joint effort between developers and players is needed to solve this problem. Remember, fair play is at the core of the enjoyment of Dota 2. Playing out of level introduces a significant imbalance in the ranked matchmaking. And exclusive items that may push you to purchase an account over time often become available in new treasures, as was the case with Arcana on Wraith King and Windranger, as well as alternate personas for Anti-Mage, Phantom Assassin, Pudge, and Invoker.