PUBG is a big deal. 8 million copies sold in five months. The game was released this year and already has passed the most played games on Steam. There are currently 874,171 players running on auto-generated islands.
That’s completely absurd. And yet it makes sense.
PUBG is Battle Royale. Everyone my generation and younger has wanted to play a Battle Royale game, there we are. The keys to success are consistent with other very popular multiplayer games:
– It’s all about gameplay
The game started as a Battle Royale mod. Everything you do has repercussions, from when you open your parachute to how you hide in the bushes and what you loot. Simple interfaces, straight to the action. PUBG is about gameplay and nothing else.
– Hard, but fair
You will die a lot without understanding what happened. But you also will get the satisfaction to do the same to others. Anyone can eliminate anyone. That intensity and fairness are the core loop (just like CS).
– Very high dynamic
You can be alone in the middle of some cornfield or in a building fighting with fifteen people in a 2 minutes span. In single games, that dynamic is authored and usually ultra predictable (battle music fades in). In a multiplayer game, it’s really hard to balance high gameplay dynamic, which is why it is usually about high intensity and nothing else. PUBG’s design –Battle Royale’s- pulls that one together with ease. It is great game design.
– Customization
People have their preferences and like to express their individualism. This is a part of gameplay. Diversity, inclusiveness and hat choices are fantastic to involve as many people as possible and broaden reach. This is not rocket science and probably why most developers still don’t get it :p
Now, the big elephant in the room. Yes, this game is about killing other people. Yes, when someone gets hit, they crawl on the ground and you will shoot them in the back. In a game setting with friends, especially friends with beers in the same room, laughs will happen. But we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people online doing this for all kinds of reasons, not just pure fun.
Everything that Raph Koster says about building societies by accident applies here.
Let’s face it: a Battle Royale game kind of invites all kinds of terrible behaviors. And in the current social climate in the real world, I can see how a lot of people will look forward to play a game that teaches them to have ice in their veins while roaming an area with two guns and grenades. That’s a little bit terrifying. For what I can see, Bluehole the developer has taken a strong stance and they ban anyone on sight. But they unban too. This is where things become complicated. Now that the developer has very strong foundations for the game, welcome to managing a society.
The game will be polished, eventually. The issues with a giant, growing community of people killing each other until there’s only one left? They probably will last forever.