PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' player count is plummeting

[Shawn Knight]

Bottom line: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds played a key role in popularizing the battle royale genre but its popularity has dwindled significantly since the beginning of the year.

According to data from SteamCharts, PUBG’s peak player count reached its highest point ever in January 2018 at 3,236,027 yet over the last 30 days, the best the game has mustered is 1,861,002 players. Similarly, the average player count has dropped from 1,584,886.8 users in January to just 843,218.6 users over the last month.

As of writing, there are 443,462 people currently playing PUBG with a peak of 1,535,178 players on Steam earlier in the day according to Valve’s own stats.

(Stats courtesy SteamCharts)

Several factors are likely contributing to PUBG’s declining numbers. For one, the game is no longer a spring chicken as it launched in beta more than a year ago. The ongoing battle against cheaters has also taken its toll on the game and the community and the sudden rise in popularity of Epic’s free-to-play Fortnite Battle Royale certainly hasn’t helped matters.

Even with the drop in players, PUBG is still a crowd-pleaser that remains incredibly popular. It’s still the most popular game on Steam by a large margin (based on peak player count) and is likely still bringing in a decent amount of cash.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/74966-playerunknown-battlegrounds-player-count-plummeting.html

 

[Lounds]

They shouldn't of made a deal with Microsoft for xbox. They literally could of made double the money having it on all platforms.

 

[gigantor21]

They shouldn't of made a deal with Microsoft for xbox. They literally could of made double the money having it on all platforms.

I really wonder how much money MS paid them to get exclusivity. It would have to be an ungodly amount to make up for the lost revenue they could've made from going multiplatform on day 1. That they likely didn't expect Fortnite to blow up so quickly was also a factor, I'll bet, but still.

 

[davislane1]

Simpler explanation: PUBG is getting old for folks and new games are coming out.

 

[ZackL04]

They shouldn't of made a deal with Microsoft for xbox. They literally could of made double the money having it on all platforms.

100% agree, and I would guess almost quadruple

 

[TomSEA]

Every game (except World of Warcraft it seems) has a life-cycle to it. And people these days are quick to drop the hot, hip thing and move on to the next.

I've never played the game, and stayed away because of the rampant cheating that was being reported. I only need that to happen to me once and I'm done with any online game. So already knew it was a dead end for me.

 

[Fearghast]

Part of this is surely court dispute over "battle royale" brand/IP.
+ Players are moving on because of developers/publishers of this title do not care for decent support with patches and new content.
Another case of a dead game because of stupid decisions.

 

[ForgottenLegion]

Hopefully the battle royale fad is on the downturn.

 

[Potato Judge]

No wonder the many lawsuits they filed.

 

[Versutus]

They shouldn't of made a deal with Microsoft for xbox. They literally could of made double the money having it on all platforms.

I really wonder how much money MS paid them to get exclusivity. It would have to be an ungodly amount to make up for the lost revenue they could've made from going multiplatform on day 1. That they likely didn't expect Fortnite to blow up so quickly was also a factor, I'll bet, but still.

Money isn't the problem here, they already made hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe over a billion. They don't have the manpower to maintain the game on PC, and now it's on Xbox One, too.

 

[Puiu]

They shouldn't of made a deal with Microsoft for xbox. They literally could of made double the money having it on all platforms.

I really wonder how much money MS paid them to get exclusivity. It would have to be an ungodly amount to make up for the lost revenue they could've made from going multiplatform on day 1. That they likely didn't expect Fortnite to blow up so quickly was also a factor, I'll bet, but still.

Money isn't the problem here, they already made hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe over a billion. They don't have the manpower to maintain the game on PC, and now it's on Xbox One, too.

Manpower is definitely not their problem. They had a lot of time to hire people. Finding good talent is another thing, but there should be a lot who of developers familiar with the game engine.
A quick look at their LinkedIn profile we ca see 2 things: that PUBG Corp has over 200 employees across the world (just the ones with an LinkedIn profile - there are many that don't have one) and that they aren't looking for developers but mostly managers. At the same time Bluehole has over 100 and there are no job listings.

Their problem is most likely much more simple (to understand): they grew too large too fast.

 

[Mister_K]

1) Poor content updates
2) Poor coding/optimizations
3) Poor customisations
4) Just a fad.
= SELL YOUR SKINS.

 

[Mister_K]

Hopefully the battle royale fad is on the downturn.

It's not, hasn't even started yet. Look at the MOBA "fad".... Fortnite is massive.

 

[Mister_K]

Every game (except World of Warcraft it seems) has a life-cycle to it. And people these days are quick to drop the hot, hip thing and move on to the next.

I've never played the game, and stayed away because of the rampant cheating that was being reported. I only need that to happen to me once and I'm done with any online game. So already knew it was a dead end for me.

Content Updates are everything. Hence why WoW has been ginormous. That as well as great dev team (well maybe not the case anymore).

WoW was THE **** all the way up until end of WotLK. Cata being absolute shite.

 

[ForgottenLegion]

It's not, hasn't even started yet. Look at the MOBA "fad".... Fortnite is massive.

Fortnite is trash played by prepubescent teens. Doesn't make it good. Just popular.
Just look at the state of the once almighty COD.

Hopefully this free to play and battle royale goes the same way.
We need quality games not the trash being pumped out nowadays.
Ask one of these teens what game Epic is famous for and Fortnite will be the first thing they blurt out and likely have never even heard of the likes of Unreal and Gears. Smh. All hope is lost.

 

[Puiu]

Fortnite is trash played by prepubescent teens. Doesn't make it good. Just popular.
Just look at the state of the once almighty COD.

Hopefully this free to play and battle royale goes the same way.
We need quality games not the trash being pumped out nowadays.
Ask one of these teens what game Epic is famous for and Fortnite will be the first thing they blurt out and likely have never even heard of the likes of Unreal and Gears. Smh. All hope is lost.

Are you that upset that a f2p game is both better in terms of gameplay and graphics than a paid one? (not to mention performance optimisations)
Why do you even care that there are young kids playing it? It's not like you are forced to interact with them on a personal level. Better yet...why are you even surprised that there a lot of kids playing a cartoonish looking game?
The game is really fun for what it is. It also gets a lot of good updates with new game modes and fun features.

On a side-note: if you think that only trash games have been released in the last few years then it's probably time for you to stop playing just Gears and Unreal and try some other game because you've clearly not played any new games.

 

[alabama man]

It's not, hasn't even started yet. Look at the MOBA "fad".... Fortnite is massive.

Fortnite is trash played by prepubescent teens. Doesn't make it good. Just popular.
Just look at the state of the once almighty COD.

Hopefully this free to play and battle royale goes the same way.
We need quality games not the trash being pumped out nowadays.
Ask one of these teens what game Epic is famous for and Fortnite will be the first thing they blurt out and likely have never even heard of the likes of Unreal and Gears. Smh. All hope is lost.

why you hate teens? Just because you don't like something doesn't make it bad, popularity is one of the best measurements what is objectively good, better than your very subjective opinions anyways. I hate that they stopped developing the new UT because of fortnite but I'm not mad, I totally get that UT had under 100 players and that fortnite with millions of players is better use of their time. I don't care for fortnite, liked it more before the battleroyale thing but just because I don't like it doesn't make it bad, lots of people seem to have fun with it and I don't judge other peoples choices as long as they don't harm others. There will be enough games for me, this won't take anything away from me that I cannot live without, when this fad is over I will get my UT and if not someone else will fill the hole it left. There's more games than ever and just because you don't like one or two of them shouldn't make you lose all your hope.

 

[Mister_K]

Fortnite is trash played by prepubescent teens. Doesn't make it good. Just popular.
Just look at the state of the once almighty COD.

Hopefully this free to play and battle royale goes the same way.
We need quality games not the trash being pumped out nowadays.
Ask one of these teens what game Epic is famous for and Fortnite will be the first thing they blurt out and likely have never even heard of the likes of Unreal and Gears. Smh. All hope is lost.

While myself prefer PUBG I can see the appeal of Fortnite. It has constant updates, great way of "storytelling" that make YOU the player feel the part of the whole transition between maps and so forth. Hell, I hope that one day they will make some form of a portal that we will have to go through which takes us to a whole new map, intertwine it with a story and boom!

Yeah we need quality single player game which is correct, but we also need jump in, shoot'em'ups like Fortnite, Rocket League, Overwatch which get you in and out fairly quickly. These games serve great for casual as well as the "pros" (try-hards).

Fortnite will need more updates, more way to feel the player "feel" special. Maybe take away from Blizzard and Valve (Dota2/CSGO skin wise and content creation)...

 

[Nobina]

The game is uncared for and Fortnite is out of control now. And when you think about it, PUBG just can't have stuff Fortnite has because it's not that type of a game, you can't add jetpacks and launch pads in PUBG cause it doesn't make sense in a game that's trying to be "realistic". Being "realistic" surely limits the game in terms of adding new stuff.

Having nonsense lawsuits can also leave a bad taste in peoples mouths.

 

[Peter Farkas]

They shouldn't of made a deal with Microsoft for xbox. They literally could of made double the money having it on all platforms.

shouldn't of = shouldn't have
could of = could have

I suppose you are American. Am I right?

 

[hahahanoobs]

The biggest complaint I keep hearing is how poorly optimized it still is.

 

[Capaill]

Bad optimisation, rampant cheaters, developers only interested in doing a cash grab and not in improving the game. Those are my opinions of it and why I haven't bought the game, despite being tempted on a few occasions.

 

[Misagt]

I bought it a year ago I tried it for an hour and returned it. They are losing their player base because the game isn't very good. They had an idea that hadn't gone main stream before so it blew up big. They lost all the good will and player attention by basking in the money they made instead of building a better game. This pissed people off and they will never return. I'm guessing that their revenue has completely tanked at this point. Hopefully future devs learn from this.

 

[ghostf1re]

Simpler explanation: PUBG is getting old for folks and new games are coming out.

This to me is the most logical explanation. The game is boring now in my opinion. It got old before it made it out of Early Access. Besides that, the game is a complete mess on Xbox and while things are better on PC in terms of performance, the cheaters are ridiculous. They did a good job by limiting the ping to keep Chinese players out of American servers, but the game is still riddled with cheaters. If they release a mode similar to Wasteland in Arma 3, I'd probably come back to the game. As of now, the game will remain off my hard drive. The battle royale formula is just old now, just like the zombies fad that hit the gaming world a few years back.

 

[elites2012]

Get rid of the cheater and the attendance may go back up. make the cheat detector stronger.