PUBG - The 'Known' Battleground | by Vedant Gupta

The video game industry is a diverse industry. You will find a lot of games about which you might have never even heard of. Then there will be some which you vaguely recall playing. Then come the ones, which you have binged on but shifted from them after getting bored. And finally we come to those games, which are merely games, but a revolution for the industry. And it is safe to say that the phenomenon called PUBG falls under the last category.

It is not every day that you come across a game like PUBG, a game that has sold millions of copies in just one year and which has been played by hundreds of millions of people within the same duration. It is a game that has successfully garnered a fan base so big in a matter of just a few months that the majority of the games are not able to, in their lifetime. Being one of the most talked-about trends in the video game industry in 2017, the year in which it was released, it is only logical that we find out how a game, that had similar games available in the market and a genre already explored by developers, was able to revolutionize the industry.

WHAT IS PUBG?

PUBG, which stands for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, is an online multi-player game, falling under the Battle Royale concept. The game consists of 100 players parachuting down from a plane to an island, and fighting it out against each other, constantly searching for weapons, vehicles, armour and other equipments and trying to kill each other.

Currently, the game consists of 4 different maps, namely Erangel, Miramar, Vikendi and Sanhok. The playing area on the map shrinks after every few minutes to confine the players into a smaller region, thus forcing more encounters and hence less and less number of people remain alive. Failure to enter this region in time leads to elimination from the contest. The last man or team standing is the winner of the contest.

Players have the option of playing this game solo, duo or in squads of upto 4 players.

In an earlier update, the zombie mode, also called, 'Zombie: Survive Till Dawn' event, was added in the EvoGround mode. Survival Till Dawn is an event which is played on the map Erangel and is available for a limited time period only. After you are at the takeoff, you can immediately sense the changes. There will be fog and there will be no daylight, somewhat cloudy. After you are air-dropped on the island, the procedure is pretty much standard like you need to run from houses to houses to find loot, armour, ammunition, helmets, backpacks and such. The gameplay is the same apart from those zombies and boss monsters. Other rival players will still try to shoot you. But if you manage to stay hidden for the initial wave, you will be fine. There are only 60 such players who are airdropped, and after the first wave of zombies, the number drops to half.

In an another update, PUBG Mobile and Resident Evil 2 collaborated and released new weapons and new zombies. In Survive Till Dawn 2.0 some zombies will be able to climb over low walls or onto roofs also thus making the fight with zombies in PUBG Mobile more interesting.

Zombie: Darkest Night is another zombie mode in PUBG Mobile but it will differ from Survive Till Dawn. In the ‘Darkest Night’ mode, players can choose to go solo or with a team and fight zombies. The interesting part here is that players cannot go outside to fight zombies as the air will be toxic at night.

Most recently, PUBG Mobile came out with new 0.13.0 update which brought in Team Deathmatch mode to EvoGround, an MVP showcase system and Godzilla theme in collaboration with the latest Godzilla movie among other things.

The Deathmatch mode will observe fight between two teams and the first team to get 40 kills would win.

DEVELOPMENT AND RELEASE

The game represents the vision of the Battle Royale genre of the man called Brendan Greene. Greene became the creator developer at the South Korean video game company 'Bluehole' for this game. The game is based on previous mods that were created by him for other games. Currently, the game is developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of Bluehole, made specifically to look after this game.

Greene created DayZ, a mod for the military simulation video game, ARMA 2 in 2013. Then, taking some inspiration from the film series 'The Hunger Games', he went on to make some changes in the mod created earlier to come up with ARMA 3, another open-world military shooting game. He continued to adopt this format for H1Z1: King of the Hill. While makingfurther improvements to it, he developed PUBG. And PUBG truly became the defining game of his career as well as this genre.

PUBG was released to early access in March 2017 and drew a great deal of attention, selling over 20 million copies by the end of the year. It had a full release on 20th December 2017.

HOW POPULAR IS PUBG ACTUALLY

Given below are a few startling facts to understand how big this phenomenon actually is:

• The game had a full release in December 2017. In about six months, that is, till June 2018, the game had already sold over 50 million copies, thus positioning at #5 in the list of the best selling video games of all time.

• During the above-mentioned half year, the game had already drawn over 400 million players, when including the free-to-play mobile version of the game. The game had an average of 87 million players daily during this time.

• In September 2017, even before the full release of the game, the game had 1,348,374 concurrent players on Steam, thus breaking the previous record held by Dota 2.

• Currently, PUBG holds the record for the most number of concurrent players on steam at 3,257,248, which it reached in January 2018.

• Talking about the revenue, PUBG was the highest earning premium (paid) game in 2018, with a revenue of around $1.028 billion.

• By the end of 2018, PUBG had earned an estimated $2.028 billion. This includes $900 million earned in 2017, $1.028 billion in 2018 and $100 million earned by PUBG mobile.

• PUBG mobile had around 225 million downloads by October 2018. Currently, the game has been installed 400 million times.

• It was the most downloaded Battle Royale game in the year 2018, having around 200 million more downloads than its closest competitor, Fortnite.

No wonder PUBG was the most famous online game in many countries in 2018, including India. In fact, in the first quarter of 2018, it was the most downloaded game on Apple's App store, having more downloads than apps like YouTube, Netflix and Snapchat. The game has already entered the top 5 in the list of most downloaded games on Android in India.

Apart from the fame it has garnered, PUBG has also proved its mettle as a game thoroughly liked by critics, winning some major game awards, including:

• 2 Best Multiplayer Game Awards, one of them coming at the Game Awards 2017

• PC Game of the Year Award, 2017

• Mobile Game of the Year Award, 2018

• Action Game of the Year Award and the Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay at the D.I.C.E Awards 2018

It has got majorly favorable reviews from critics, who feel that the game, despite some technical flaws, has presented new types of gameplay and is easily approachable by players of any skill level.

But what all went behind making this game a revolution in the field of video games. Let us look at this in the next section.

HOW DID PUBG REACH SUCH A LEVEL OF POPULARITY?

It is inevitable that such a humongous level of fame encompasses some concrete strategies which were minutely designed and successfully implemented. So let us look at some factors why PUBG is as big as it is.

1. Replayability aspect of the game:

Brendan Greene focused on details while making this game and tried to overcome some flaws of other similar games. He found out that other multi-player games were too repetitive, having small maps which were easy to memorize. So he created something more random with PUBG, he wanted to ensure that the maps were quite large in size and every game had a different item placement, ensuring that each game provided something distinct to players, thus increasing the replayability aspect of the game.

2. The musical theme of PUBG:

The game's musical theme has a major role to play in keeping the players resolutely determined. It was composed by Tom Salta. The musical theme of PUBG gives the players a huge build-up and keeps them in a competitive state of mind till the very end.

3. Available for free on Android and iOS:

Despite being a paid game on PC, Xbox, and PS4, PUBG is available for free on Android and iOS. This has a major role to play in its popularity. Moreover, the mobile version of PUBG is highly compatible with both Android and iOS. It can be smoothly run on any decent smartphone.

4. Realistic storyline:

The concept of PUBG appeals to us psychologically. The fact that we have to constantly compete with other humans and in the process, do anything to survive makes the game all the more captivating as we appeal to this personally. Moreover, beating 99 other players and being the last man standing gives ultimate bragging rights!

5. High-quality graphics and audio:

The game boasts of amazing gameplay effects. These effects make the playing experience all the more real. Quality audio, with 3D sound effects, an HD map, and 7.1 channel surround sound make the players feel as if they are actually present on the island in real life. Also, the footsteps, bombing, shooting and other things involved in the process add more and more to its captivating power.

6. Anti-cheat mechanics:

The developers of PUBG laid special emphasis on anti-cheat mechanics. There have been instances in the past when people have stopped playing a game due to the fact that it is prone to hacking. At one point, people had stopped playing CS:GO due to the fact that the game could be easily hacked. But PUBG uses a very powerful anti-cheat system called BattlEye, which automatically bans someone who tries to use cheats. On an average, 6,000 players are banned every day from playing PUBG.

7. The joy of playing with friends:

PUBG offers the benefit of playing in a squad with your friends. Even while sitting far apart, you can play a game with your friends, and what's better is that you can even use voice-chat to talk with them during the game! The joy of playing such enjoyable games with friends is just unmatchable. This opportunity was earlier explored by the game Mini Militia, which became a huge hit in countries like India. And now, PUBG fully exploited this opportunity as well.

Talking about the Indian context (India constituted 10% of the game's mobile downloads in 2018), PUBG Mobile gained a lot of popularity in India due to the fact that Jio has established a strong and cheap 4G network in India. Moreover, the availability of cheap smartphones from the likes of Lenovo and Xiaomi just added to it. Moreover, Indian people don't like investing in games and the fact that PUBG Mobile was absolutely free only magnified this popularity.

Even the critics have emphasized on the fact that the fast-paced nature and the inbuilt unpredictability of the game, coupled with the captivating genre of the game have made it a huge hit among gamers.

THE ROLE OF STREAMING

The makers of PUBG did not indulge in any traditional forms of marketing. They did not give out a barrage of trailers, or trickle out minor details over the course of a few months. They made use of the method called “Streaming”.

Streaming is primarily the practice of listening to music or watching videos on the internet in “real time”. Real time means that the viewers don't need to download the content to watch it. There are live videos which are continuously presented by the provider and watched by the viewers.

There are people called streamers who stream their lengthy game playing sessions online on various services like Amazon's Twitch. The makers of PUBG ensured that the game reached the hands of some of the most popular streamers and content creators on Twitch and other streaming services, keeping in mind that the game reached every major variety of streamers.

One example is of the streamer called Lirik. Lirik is an American with 1.6 million followers on Twitch. He and other streamers streamed PUBG to such an extent that people actually started getting addicted to it. Since it's release, PUBG has retained a position at the top of Twitch's most streamed games.

The makers of PUBG kept this array of marketing in minds while developing the game. The game is streaming friendly. As the game starts, a slow video of a flying plane is shown. During this time, the streamers begin their video and indulge into light introduction and interaction with the viewers. As the game progresses, the intensity of the video being streamed also takes off.

PUBG v/s FORTNITE: How Fortnite has affected the popularity of PUBG

If there's one game of the Battle Royale genre which has not only come close but actually overtaken PUBG, it is Fortnite. One can say that the popularity of PUBG has been greatly affected by Fortnite. Having a lot of similarities to PUBG, Fortnite has been successful in attracting a major chunk of regular PUBG players.

Most of the gamers playing PUBG were casual and irregular gamers. This meant that PUBG, which required a great deal of seriousness and dedication while playing, couldn't hold them for long and they shifted to Fortnite, which provided them with a more casual gaming experience.

Moreover, Fortnite is a better-optimized game than PUBG is. It provides certain unrealistic aspects like destroying trees, houses, walls and literally everything that comes in your way. You can even build your way to the sky in Fortnite. Such characteristics are extremely unique to Fortnite and are lacking in PUBG.

Fortnite currently holds the record for the most number of concurrent players at 8.3 million. Moreover, PUBG might have been the highest earning premium game of 2018 with earnings to the extent of $1.028 billion, but Fortnite was the highest grossing game of the year, with revenue figure of $2.4 billion which was more than double as compared to PUBG. And thus, it is safe to say that Fortnite has replaced PUBG to a great extent. PUBG had already reached its peak in January 2018 and had started falling after that. That's exactly where Fortnite took the stage.

However, there are many aspects where PUBG still is the boss over Fortnite:

• PUBG is an extremely serious game and hardcore gamers did not shift from it.

• PUBG provides the option between FPP (First Player Perspective) and TPP (Third Player Perspective). You can immerse yourself in the game the way you like it. But Fortnite only has the option of playing in the TPP mode. The FPP mode, which makes things more realistic is missing in Fortnite.

• PUBG provides a wide range of weapons to choose from. Moreover, it has a wider variety and size of maps, thus making things more competitive than Fortnite.

• The adrenaline rush, intensity and captivating power of PUBG is much more than that of Fortnite.

To conclude, it can be said that despite the fact that Fortnite might have affected the popularity of PUBG, but PUBG is definitely better and still remains a more intensely designed game.

THE FUTURE OF PUBG

Although PUBG was able to reach unchartered territories, peaking at around 3.2 million concurrent players on Steam in January 2018, the game's popularity fell down to 1.7 million concurrent players, that is, nearly half in less than 6 months. Moreover, the latest figures suggest that the game sees nearly 400,000 to 450,000 concurrent players daily as of now. The major cause of concern for PUBG with the falling popularity is the trend that the Industry has seen. The gaming industry has seen its shares of revolutionary developments but even chart toppers fall from grace when it comes to gaming industry. Clash of Clans, GTA or even Candy Crush, every type of game had trend, had its foot landed in the profits of gaming industry but the USP of gaming industry has constantly avoided monopoly for long. People get bored, thus the updates, but what will the update serve if the game's concept is something that has called for a switch from the gamer's side? PUBG was and is a wonderful concept. Players still play it, but in general folk, switching games after every six months is a trend seen by the industry. PUBG has continued to be the frontrunner for more than 18 months despite this history of Industry. Not only this, the battle royale concept has been explored by many games. And in the similar horizon, there comes Call of Duty, a PC Gaming Phenomenon in mobile application based segment with similar space requirements and pre-release hype as that of PUBG. Things look great for Call of Duty's initial run. Thus, the chances of staying at the top for PUBG diminish.

There have been reports suggesting that the VR version of PUBG is already in development, although it is at an extremely early stage. This is primarily because the makers of PUBG have realized that the future of the game is not console based.

Also, as time passes by, only those who are good at the game will continue playing it, while 'noobs', as they call gamers with little or no experience, will shift to other easier substitutes of the game, like Fortnite. However, the revolution called PUBG will definitely go down as an important history lesson for games to come in the future!