PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is the biggest PC game in the world right now. Of course, that’s not exactly true because more people are still playing Dota 2 or League of Legends, but this is the closest any game has come in a while to getting into the conversation with those perennial champs.
Last weekend, PUBG — as fans tend to call it — beat Grand Theft Auto V’s all-time high for concurrent players on Steam with 382,779 people all online at the same time. That’s a massive number that is enough to make it the No. 4 most simultaneous players in the history of Steam. It’s also only behind Fallout 4 in terms of non-Valve releases.
With that level of success, however, you can maybe start waiting for the other shoe to drop. For an unfinished Early Access game like PUBG, that other shoe could come in the form of angry fans who lose faith in the developer. But we also saw this week how Bluehole and Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene himself are willing to rub their audience the wrong way to make a statement. Greene banned the megapopular Twitch streamer DrDisRespect for breaking a rule that prohibits killing your own teammate deliberately.
But now that “beef” has blown over, and PUBG is still growing. What’s perhaps most impressive about that is the growth isn’t just in the U.S. or certain parts of Asia. It is global. China is one of Bluehole’s fastest growing markets, and the studio has not even partnered with publisher in that country yet. That is coming, and it seems like it could make PUBG even bigger.
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And that’s why I feel confident mentioning Battlegrounds alongside Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or League of Legends. It seems like it’s the only game anyone on the planet is playing right now.
–Jeff Grubb, GamesBeat PC gaming editor
P.S. You have to get chicken dinner for your friends’ birthdays.
From GamesBeat
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Comparing Battle Royale-likes: PUBG vs. H1Z1 vs. the rest
layerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, H1Z1: King of the Kill, and more are part of a popular new genre on PC gaming’s biggest platform where you have to survive a fight to the death on a huge map. GamesBeat has done these kinds of comparisons with multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs) and digital card games […]
Vava’s mechanical gaming keyboard is affordable and ergonomic
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Beyond GamesBeat
Persona 5 is now playable in RPCS3
Last week the Persona 5 video seen below was posted showing how RPCS3 had been improved to fix various emulation issues with the game. [via RPCS3.com]
Doom appears to have sold 2 million copies on PC
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‘Soon, you will be able to design your character to a tee,’ says PUBG executive producer
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White House throws weight behind FCC’s plan to overturn net neutrality rules
Net neutrality rules that were enacted by the US Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration are hanging by a thread. With the FCC now led by chairman Ajit Pai, a longtime opponent of tasking the government with regulating broadband Internet, the White House today announced its official support for his plan to roll back the rules designed to ensure an even playing field. [via PC Gamer]
