Elden Ring runes are being sold on eBay, and people are actually buying them

Elden Ring is a hard game — no argument there. Collecting runes and leveling up your character is key to overcoming bosses and other challenges, but it seems there’s a market for gaining XP outside of the game itself.

A quick eBay search brings up lots of results for Elden Ring runes. Seller spacemagic is offering 20 million runes for the Xbox Series X/S or Xbox One version of the game for $25 USD, and as of the time of this writing, 26 purchases have been made in the past 24 hours. PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 players can buy two million runes from seller nem-8578 for $15 USD, and a handful of folks have taken that deal too.

If you’re wondering how one of these transactions actually goes down, ask Eurogamer’s Ed Nightingale, who reported on the experience. It involved making the purchase, receiving a DM from the seller, and choosing a meeting place in-game. It felt like “meeting a drug dealer,” according to Nightingale. It certainly sounds like it, but if you can overlook the potential weirdness of the whole transaction, you can apparently score yourself a legit in-game boost for some real-world money. Thankfully, eBay does have channels for reporting a seller who doesn’t show.

If you’re forgoing the eBay runes but still need a few tips in conquering Elden Ring’s difficult bosses, we’ve got you covered. We can show you how to beat Margit the Fell Omen, as well as Godrick the Grafted after him.