Some ARC Raiders Players Are Buying Blueprints on eBay

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Players are already reselling items from the popular game ARC Raiders on eBay, and there’s a surprisingly strong demand. Developed by Embark Studios, ARC Raiders was a hit in 2025, even winning the award for Best Multiplayer Game. Its success is likely due to its engaging system of finding loot, which encourages players to constantly search for better equipment. However, some players seem to be choosing to buy upgrades instead of earning them through gameplay.

Blueprints are among the rarest and most desired items in the game ARC Raiders. There are more than 70 different blueprints to find, and they’re all available for free by exploring locations on the surface. However, many players have had trouble finding them, even after playing for hundreds of hours, due to very low drop rates. As a result, some players are now selling the blueprints they’ve found online, creating a player-driven economy within the game.

ARC Raiders’ eBay Listings Are Out of Control

A quick search on eBay shows over a thousand listings for items from the game ARC Raiders. Most sellers are offering valuable blueprints or hard-to-get in-game coins. Prices vary widely, from as little as $0.99 to over $400, depending on how rare the item is or how much of it is being sold. For example, the popular Bobcat blueprint usually sells for around $90, while the Wolfpack blueprint is typically under $10. Many sellers are also offering large packs of crafting materials, including Gun Parts, Powercells, and various Seeds, and advertise “fast and secure” delivery for almost everything in their in-game inventory.

Prices range from $0.99 to $400 USD or more, depending on item rarity or order size.

Image via Embark Studios

How ARC Raiders Blueprint Trades Work

The game ARC Raiders includes a feature called Safe Pocket that lets players trade items securely on eBay. Here’s how it works: After a buyer purchases an item, they share their unique Embark ID with the seller, who then sends them a game invitation. Both players join a match, and the seller gives the buyer the item. The buyer can then safely store it in their Safe Pocket and leave the game without worrying about losing it.

Image via Embark Studios

Unlike other items, coins can’t be stored in the Safe Pocket. Because of this, players often trade high-value items during matches. Sellers will drop these items for buyers, then help them reach an extraction point where they can safely sell the items for coins. This shows there’s a developed, player-driven trading system happening within the game, mirroring real-world trading.

Blueprint Bartering Is Also Quite Popular in ARC Raiders

Players are starting to trade items with each other in ARC Raiders instead of buying them from other players using real money, or if they don’t trust sellers. They’re using dedicated threads on the game’s Reddit pages to list what they have and what they’re looking for. A typical trade involves swapping one blueprint for a full stack of Assorted Seeds – a fair exchange, considering blueprints cost 5,000 in-game coins, while a stack of seeds is worth 10,000.

Since the game ARC Raiders doesn’t have a way to reset progress on servers, players are likely to continue buying and selling items through sites like eBay and Reddit until the developers add an official trading system. Because there aren’t periodic wipes of player progress, people feel comfortable spending money on items they can keep and use for permanent upgrades and cosmetic changes during Expeditions. It wouldn’t make sense to invest in items if they were just going to disappear after a short time.

Image via Embark Studios

Embark Studios’ Opinion About Real-Money Transactions

After the launch of ARC Raiders, players flocked to the game’s Discord server to connect with the developers and each other. A common question was why trading wasn’t allowed. A community manager explained that the ban on trading was to prevent players from buying and selling items with real money or being scammed. This is a standard practice in the extraction shooter genre, where real-world trading is generally prohibited.

Despite the developers’ wishes, players are already buying and selling items for real money in ARC Raiders. Listings on sites like eBay are still common, and preventing this would likely require limiting helpful features within the game, which Embark Studios probably wants to avoid. However, the developers’ future plans for ARC Raiders might include an official trading system, which could help control the real-money trading that’s currently happening.

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2025-12-14 18:07