PUBG and its Possible Evolution to a Real Sport in the Nearest Future

In the NewZoo ranking of the top played online PC games, PUBG takes the 10th position. It means that just in two years, the game released in the US, Japan, Russia, and China attracted millions of players and streamers on multiple platforms. Microsoft, Xbox One, Android, iOS, and PlayStation welcomed it as an undeniable Stream leader. Today, PUBG’s creator Brendan Greene will share his thoughts on the game improvements for the next future and open up about his thoughts on the matter of esports future in general.

You wouldn’t ever believe it, but Brendan Greene has been hoping for PUBG becoming a massive battle royal since the first day it was launched. PlayerUnknown (his PUBG nickname) has recently mentioned that seeing the number of players, streamers, and viewers make him burst into tears. Of happiness, of course. The multi-thousand crowd cheered Brendan’s name when last year he was coming up to the Berlin Mercedes-Benz Arena. “I could never imagine that PUBG Global invitational tournament will gather a stadium” he shares.

Behind the famous PUBG scenery, you will find around 10 years of designing and brainstorming process. Setting up a decent game means combining the finest features of other battle royals with something innovative. Thus, the entire mechanism functions like a puzzle; matching its pieces came to be a burden for Brendan Greene, which is now certainly paying off.

What’s next? Streaming is certainly not enough to contribute to PUBG, sustainably attracting new players. Most of its competitors decided to take proved strategies, which could actually be applied to any other type of business aimed at self-promotion. This includes, for example, marketing campaigns, product placement, communication with the audience, and investments into the partnering institutions.

However, when it comes to universal regulations of esports, one may encounter some controversies in particular with battle royals. For instance, Counter-Strike and Dota 2 imply two teams competing, whereas Fortnite and PUBG may engage up to 100 players simultaneously. Due to these challenges, the real-life logistics becomes a complicated, fragile process. Brendan Greene mentions that PUBG core team is now trying to come up with the appropriate framework for competitions regardless of the game.

“One of the biggest advantages PUBG is lucky to have is its rules. Easy enough for a beginner, they are elaborate enough to engage a professional player as well. I think this is how PUBG became a mainstream game, it is quite inclusive” – comments Brendan. What is more, Greene is now thinking about turning PUBG into a real-life sport since the audience can actually understand all the gaming process from watching it.

“Everybody is expecting something special from us. You’ve seen the pace our competitors are developing, right? Whereas it’s impossible to create esports from scratch, PUBG already has a platform with the growing involvement. Thus, our position on the market is stable enough to start transforming PUBG into the actual sports.”

Such a decision might dramatically modify the entire PUBG development strategy. Thus, there is a need to consider how big the chances of failure are. One of the possible options is to look though the online reviews left by gamers and define their general attitude and level of loyalty to the brand.

Curtis: I work as a graphic designer, and you can imagine how disappointed I was with most of the online games. PUBG, however, has outstanding graphics, which is smooth enough not to disturb you during the actual game. Sometimes, I put the play on pause just to look at the picture on the screen. They (PUBG designers) did such a great job!

Luigi: Every time I play, I find some new things I admire about the game. I guess it’s the most emotional battle royal: I literally get an adrenaline rush when coming to the final circles.

Byron: I used to play Fortnite and tried PUBG just to grab an idea. Well, I got addicted! Starting with the standard Windows platform, I later switched to Xbox One together with my friends. This is the most mind-blowing experience I ever had in a battle royal!

If PUBG goes beyond the niche of cybersport, it will be able to attract more investments due to sponsorship, extended audience, and betting services. PUBG betting is not a new thing to the market. Still, it is possible to involve more betting services for both sports and esports. This will for sure become a win-win situation for both sides.