PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is an online multiplayer battle royale game developed

and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole.
The game is based on previous mods that were created by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene for
other games, inspired by the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale, and expanded into a standalone
game under Greene's creative direction. In the game, up to one hundred players parachute onto an
island and scavenge for weapons and equipment to kill others while avoiding getting killed
themselves. The available safe area of the game's map decreases in size over time, directing
surviving players into tighter areas to force encounters. The last player or team standing wins the
round.
Battlegrounds was first released for Microsoft Windows via Steam's early access beta program in
March 2017, with a full release on December 20, 2017. That same month, the game was released
by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One via its Xbox Game Previewprogram, and officially released in
September 2018. The same year, a free-to-play mobile version for Android and iOS was released, in
addition to a port for the PlayStation 4. Battlegrounds is one of the best-selling and most-played
video games of all time, selling over fifty million copies worldwide by June 2018, with over 400
million players in total when including its free-to-play mobile version.
Battlegrounds received positive reviews from critics, who found that while the game had some
technical flaws, it presented new types of gameplay that could be easily approached by players of
any skill level and was highly replayable. The game received several Game of the Year nominations,
among other accolades. Several other video games, following in Battlegrounds's success, added
battle royale-style modes, while a number of clones, primarily out of China, also appeared. PUBG
Corporation has run several small tournaments and introduced in-game tools to help with
broadcasting the game to spectators, as they wish for it to become a popular esport.

Contents

 1Gameplay
 2Development
o 2.1Design
 3Release
o 3.1Windows
o 3.2Xbox One
o 3.3Mobile versions
o 3.4PlayStation 4
o 3.5PUBG Lite
 4Esports
 5Reception
o 5.1Sales
o 5.2Awards
 6Notes
 7References
 8External links

Gameplay
Battlegrounds is a player versus player shooter game in which up to one hundred players fight in
a battle royale, a type of large-scale last man standing deathmatch where players fight to remain the
last alive. Players can choose to enter the match solo, duo, or with a small team of up to four people.
The last person or team alive wins the match.[1]
Each match starts with players parachuting from a plane onto one of the four maps, with areas of
approximately 8 × 8 kilometres (5.0 × 5.0 mi), 6 × 6 kilometres (3.7 × 3.7 mi), and 4 × 4 kilometres
(2.5 × 2.5 mi) in size.[2] The plane's flight path across the map varies with each round, requiring
players to quickly determine the best time to eject and parachute to the ground.[1] Players start with
no gear beyond customized clothing selections which do not affect gameplay. Once they land,
players can search buildings, ghost towns and other sites to find weapons, vehicles, armor, and
other equipment. These items are procedurally distributed throughout the map at the start of a
match, with certain high-risk zones typically having better equipment.[1] Killed players can be looted
to acquire their gear as well.[1] Players can opt to play either from the first-person or third-person
perspective, each having their own advantages and disadvantages in combat and situational
awareness; though server-specific settings can be used to force all players into one perspective to
eliminate some advantages.[3]
Every few minutes, the playable area of the map begins to shrink down towards a random location,
with any player caught outside the safe area taking damage incrementally, and eventually being
eliminated if the safe zone is not entered in time; in game, the players see the boundary as a
shimmering blue wall that contracts over time.[4] This results in a more confined map, in turn
increasing the chances of encounters.[1] During the course of the match, random regions of the map
are highlighted in red and bombed, posing a threat to players who remain in that area.[5] In both
cases, players are warned a few minutes before these events, giving them time to relocate to
safety.[6] At random, a plane will fly over various parts of the playable map and drop a loot package,
containing items which are typically unobtainable during normal gameplay. These packages emit
highly visible red smoke, drawing interested players near it and creating further confrontations.[1] On
average, a full round takes no more than 30 minutes.[6]
At the completion of each round, players gain in-game currency based on their performance. The
currency is used to purchase crates which contain cosmetic items for character or weapon
customization.[7] A rotating "event mode" was added to the game around March 2018. These events
change up the normal game rules, such as establishing larger teams or squads, or altering the
distribution of weapons and armor across the game map.[8]

Development

Lead designer Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene at the 2018 Game Developers Conference

Lead designer Brendan Greene, better known by his online handle PlayerUnknown, had previously
created the ARMA 2 mod DayZ: Battle Royale, an offshoot of popular mod DayZ, and inspired by the
2000 Japanese film Battle Royale.[9][10] At the time he created DayZ: Battle Royale, around 2013,
Irish-born Greene had been living in Brazil for a few years as a photographer, graphic designer, and
web designer, and played video games such as Delta Force: Black Hawk Down and America's
Army.[11][12] The DayZ mod caught his interest, both as a realistic military simulation and its open-
ended gameplay, and started playing around with a custom server, learning programming as he
went along.[11] Greene found most multiplayer first-person shooters too repetitive, considering maps
small and easy to memorize. He wanted to create something with more random aspects so that
players would not know what to expect, creating a high degree of replayability; this was done by
creating vastly larger maps that could not be easily memorized, and using random item placement
across it.[13] Greene was also inspired by an online competition for DayZ called Survivor GameZ,
which featured a number of Twitch.tv and YouTube streamers fighting until only a few were left; as
he was not a streamer himself, Greene wanted to create a similar game mode that anyone could
play.[13] His initial efforts on this mod were more inspired by The Hunger Games novels, where
players would try to vie for stockpiles of weapons at a central location, but moved away from this
partially to give players a better chance at survival by spreading weapons around, and also to avoid
copyright issues with the novels.[10] In taking inspiration from the Battle Royale film, Greene had
wanted to use square safe areas, but his inexperience in coding led him to use circular safe areas
instead, which persisted to Battlegrounds.[10]
When DayZ became its own standalone title, interest in his ARMA 2 version of the Battle
Royale mod trailed off, and Greene transitioned development of the mod to ARMA 3.[11] Sony Online
Entertainment (now the Daybreak Game Company) had become interested in Greene's work, and
brought him on as a consultant to develop on H1Z1, licensing the battle royale idea from him.[11] In
February 2016, Sony Online split H1Z1 into two separate games, the survival mode H1Z1: Just
Survive, and the battle royale-like H1Z1: King of the Kill, around the same time that Greene's
consultation period was over.[14]
Separately, the Seoul-based studio Ginno Games, led by Chang-han Kim and who
developed massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) for personal computers, was acquired and
renamed Bluehole Ginno Games by Bluehole in January 2015, a major South Korean publisher of
MMOs and mobile games.[15][16] Kim recognized that producing a successful game in South Korea
generally meant it would be published globally, and wanted to use his team to create a successful
title for personal computers that followed the same model as other mobile games published by
Bluehole. He had already been excited about making a type of battle royale game after he had
played DayZ, in part that the format had not caught on in Korea. He also wanted to make this
through an early access model and have a very limited development schedule to get the game out
as quickly as possible, while treating the product as a "games as a service" model to be able to
support it for many years.[15] In researching what had been done, he came across Greene's mods
and reached out to him.[15]In July 2017, Bluehole partnered with social media platform Facebook to
provide exclusive streaming content to Facebook's gaming channels, as part of their pushing to
provide more gaming content for its users.[17]
Around the same time that Greene left Sony Online, Kim contacted and offered him the opportunity
to work on a new battle royale concept. Within a week, Greene flew out to Bluehole's headquarters
in Korea to discuss the options, and a few weeks later, became the creative director of Bluehole. He
moved to South Korea to oversee development.[13]According to Greene, this was the first time a
Korean game studio had brought aboard a foreigner for a creative director role, and while a risk, he
says that his relationship with Bluehole's management is strong, allowing Greene's team to work
autonomously with minimal oversight.[6] The game's main musical theme was composed by Tom
Salta, who was personally selected by Greene as he and the team were looking for an "orchestral
electronic hybrid theme" that would give players a "huge build-up", keeping them "resolutely
determined" until a match starts.[18]
Development began in early 2016 and was publicly announced that June, with plans to have the
game ready within a year.[19][20] Kim served as executive producer for the game.[13]Bluehole started
with a team of about 35 developers supporting Greene's work, but had expanded to 70 by June
2017.[21] Greene stated that many of these developers were voluntarily putting in longer work hours
into the game due to their dedication to the project, and not by any mandate from himself or
Bluehole's management.[13][22] In addition to Bluehole, Greene also credits Bohemia Interactive, the
developers of ARMA and DayZ, for support with motion capture animations via
their Prague studio.[22][21]
With the rapid growth of interest in the game, Bluehole spun out the entire development
for Battlegrounds into Bluehole Ginno Games in September 2017, which was renamed PUBG
Corporation with Kim as its chief executive officer. PUBG Corporation continued the development of
the game and its marketing and growth, opening an office in the United States with plans for future
ones in Europe and Japan.[23] In August 2018, PUBG Corporation launched the "Fix PUBG"
campaign, acknowledging that that game by then still had several lingering bugs and other
performance issues.[24] The campaign finished in November, with PUBG Corporation calling it a
success as everything listed had been implemented by then.[25]

Design
Battlegrounds represents the standalone version of what Greene believes is the "final version" of the
battle royale concept, incorporating the elements he had designed in previous iterations.[6][26] Faster
development was possible with the game engine Unreal Engine 4, compared with ARMA and H1Z1,
which were built with proprietary game engines. Greene acknowledged that implementing the size of
the maps in Battlegrounds has been one of the challenges with working with Unreal, which was not
designed with such maps in mind.[6][11] The game was designed as a mix between the realistic
simulation of ARMA 3 and the arcade-like action focus and player accessibility of H1Z1.[5]
Based on Greene's experience with the genre, an island with many terrain features was picked as
the first map, known as "Erangel".[10] The map design scope was to offer players many possible
options for strategic and unique gameplay.[4] Some buildings and structures were designed to depict
the style of the brutalist architecture of the Soviet Union during the 1950s. The developer team
playtested architecture features and random item placement systems, looking at both how close-
quarters encounters went, and for open terrain areas.[4] The goal was to optimize the right distribution
and placement of weapons and gear across the map, to encourage players to make strategic
decisions about how to proceed in the game without overly penalizing players who may not find
weapons within the first few minutes of a round.[6] During early access, additional maps were
planned, such as one set on a fictional island in the Adriatic Sea that included snow-
covered Yugoslavian territories.[27][21] Greene stated that he thought the Erangel map felt disjointed
despite meeting their goals for gameplay, and sought to create more unified ideas with future
maps.[10]
The freefall from an airplane at the start of each match was a new feature for the genre, to
encourage strategy between staying with the pack of players or seeking out one's own route for a
better chance at finding good loot.[6] With the added parachute drop, Greene considered
that Battlegrounds had three distinct subgames: the airdrop during which one must quickly figure out
the best time to jump and where to land in relationship to the other players, the loot game of knowing
where and how to gather the best possible equipment, and the combat game with other
players.[28] Players who win a match are greeted with the phrase "winner winner chicken dinner", an
idiom that Greene had used in his prior battle royale games and kept in Battlegrounds, which itself
had origins as early as the Great Depression.[29]
Features that Greene anticipates adding include custom games and modding support.[6][13] He
considered modding support an essential part of the full release as, just as he had his start with
mods, he wants to enable others to create variations on his game so that he can "find the next
PlayerUnknown".[30] Greene also wants to incorporate the game with streaming services
like Twitch.tv that would enable replays or other features amenable to treating Battlegrounds as
an esport.[6][13] Greene had anticipated that Battlegrounds would develop into an esport, and this was
an ultimate end goal for his development, but he wanted to let the nature of how it would play out as
an esport grow naturally with the player community.[12] He also plans to
introduce microtransactions to allow players to use real-world funds to purchase loot crates that
provide randomly-selected cosmetic items, also known as "skins", which they can trade with other
players; while Greene recognizes the issue with skin gambling, he believes that Valve has put
safeguards in place to support a "skin economy" that will provide further revenue for them without
concerns over gambling.[7] However, by November 2017, gray market skin gambling sites began to
appear, using Battlegrounds cosmetics as virtual currency.[31] Following controversy over the use
of loot boxes to offer "pay-to-win" items in other games in November 2017, the PUBG Corporation
affirmed that while they will continue to add new cosmetic items rewarded by in-game crate
purchases, they "will never add anything that affects the gameplay".[32] In May 2018, PUBG
Corporation disabled the ability to trade skins on the Steam Marketplace as they found that players
were still abusing the system by selling them for monetary value through unofficial third-party
platforms.[33]
While in early access, Bluehole offered an early preview of the system by offering time-limited crates
that could be purchased during the first Battlegrounds Invitations tournament during Gamescom in
August 2017, with the sales from these contributing to the prize pool. Among loot from these crates
are special outfits inspired by the Battle Royale movie.[34]Greene anticipates adding a campaign
mode with co-operative player support, though there would be "no serious lore" crafted for the
narrative, comparing this to similar modes in Watch Dogs.[35]
The game, while in early access, has already received alternate gameplay modes created by
players, determined by unenforceable rules that players agree to abide by, that have been popular
with streamers. This was aided by a quiet release of custom server support to a number of influential
streamers which subsequently made it into public release.[22] In one case, "Zombie Mode", all but four
players pretend to be zombies, who may sometimes distinguish themselves by removing all clothing
and are limited only to collecting melee weapons and consumable items, and must rush to attack the
other four players, who are able to collect all gear and attempt to outrun and defeat the
zombies.[36] Inspired by this mode, Greene announced plans to introduce an official zombie-based
gameplay mode based on this into Battlegrounds.[37] Whereas most of the rest of the team continued
to develop the core gameplay and maps, Greene is taking on the zombie mode as a near solo
project, only using the assistance of the lead animator to help with the zombie animations.[21] Greene
sees Battlegrounds as a platform, and would like to see more custom game types and mods
developed by players for it.[11] Greene identified that some mods that he also previously worked on
from ARMA 3 may become part of the Battlegrounds platform.[11]
To prevent in-game cheating, the game uses the "BattlEye" anti-cheating software, which had
permanently banned over 13 million players in total by October 2018.[38][39] BattlEye indicated that
99% of all cheating software for the game was developed in China.[40]

Release
Windows
Bluehole used closed alpha and beta periods with about 80,000 players to gauge initial reaction to
the gameplay and adjust balance prior to a wider release.[13][41] Just prior to the early access phase on
Steam, Bluehole opened a few servers and invited some popular live streamers of similar games to
try it out as to start gaining interest.[42] Early access for the Windows version launched on March 23,
2017.[43] This period was planned to last approximately six months, originally aiming for a September
2017 release.[43][44] In July 2017, Greene announced that they would need to extend the early access
period by a few months, continuing to release updates on a regular basis, with plans to still release
by the end of 2017, as committing to this original period "could hinder us from delivering a fully
featured game and/or lead to disappointment within the community if the launch deadline is not
met".[45] Initially, Bluehole had expected that they would just gain enough players through early
access to smooth out the gameplay, and only when the game was completed, they would have
started more marketing for the title. The sudden interest in the game from early access exceeded
their expectations, and put emphasis on the stability of the game and its underlying networking
alongside gameplay improvements.[41] Through August 2017, these updates generally included a
major weekly patch alongside major monthly updates that provided key performance
improvements.[46] However, from August onward Bluehole backed off the rate of such patches, as the
high frequency has led to some quality control issues, and the developers rather make sure each
patch content is well-vetted by the community before providing new updates; this did not change
their plans for a 2017 release, where it fully released out of early access on December 20.[47][48]
In part of the game's success in early access, Tencent Games, the largest publisher of video games
in China, approached Bluehole that same month with an offer to publish Battlegrounds in China and
purchase equity in the company.[49] However, the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing
Association issued a statement in October 2017 that discouraged battle royale-style games, stating
that they are too violent and deviate from Chinese values of socialism, deeming it harmful to young
consumers.[50][51] The following month however, PUBG had reached a formal agreement with the
Chinese government to allow the release of the game in the country, with Tencent as the publishing
partner.[52]However, some changes were made to make sure it aligned with socialist values and
traditional Chinese morals.[53] In South Korea, the game is marketed and distributed by Kakao
Games.[54]
Despite the lack of a Chinese publisher prior to the Tencent deal, players in China had found ways
to acquire and play the game through Steam via proxies and other networking tricks.[55] To address it,
PUBG Corporation planned to add maximum client ping limits for servers which can reduce the
issues with latency problems and prevent some of the cheating that has occurred. This would not
prevent cross-region matchmaking but may make it difficult for some players to play outside their
region if they have a poor Internet infrastructure.[56] Tencent has also helped by identifying and
reporting around 30 software programs to Chinese police that can be used to cheat in Battlegrounds,
leading to over a hundred arrests by the beginning of 2018.[57] Separately, this technical issue, in
addition to the larger number of Chinese players, has created complaints in the player community.
Some Western players fear that many Chinese players are able to cheat in the game by exploiting
some of the network latency issues, something that PUBG Corporation continued to address as the
game shifted out of early access. However, a small number of players called for server segregation
by region, and had used racial insults at Chinese players they encounter in game. Greene was
disappointed with this "xenophobic attitude", calling it "disgraceful", and asked the player community
to respect the Chinese players more as their numbers were a key part of the game's
success.[55] Greene also identified that players can easily get around such region locks using virtual
private networks, making this approach ineffective.[58] PUBG Corporation eventually added region-
based matchmaking by October 2018, though players still reported issues with connectivity and slow
matchmaking.[59]

Xbox One
Greene was part of Microsoft's press conference during E3 2017 to announce
that Battlegrounds would be coming to Xbox One as a timed console exclusive sometime by the end
of 2017, using the Xbox Game Preview early access approach to test it.[60][61][41]
Initially, Greene said that Microsoft was not directly involved in the porting but only providing
assistance to make sure the port is good, and that most of the porting responsibilities are being done
by Anticto, a Spanish developer.[30] However, at Gamescom that year, Bluehole affirmed
that Microsoft Studios would be publishing the Xbox One version of the title, helping to make a
planned 2017 release for this version.[62] Greene said that Microsoft's support has helped in several
ways, not only for the Xbox One version but improving the performance and security of the Windows
version. Further, by being part of the group of studios under the Microsoft banner, they have been
able to talk and incorporate technology from other developers, such as improved water rendering
techniques they obtained from Rare that they had developed for Sea of Thieves.[63] Microsoft
considered Battlegrounds to be an important project to demonstrate their company's ability to be
more than just a publisher, according to Microsoft's Nico Bihary who lead the project. Bihary said
they have given Battlegrounds a "white glove" treatment, and for the Xbox One port have provided
services from their advanced technology group and time and support from The Coalition, another of
Microsoft Studios' subsidiaries.[64] Kim also stated that the team was interested in cross-platform
play between the Windows and console versions, but did not anticipate this as a release feature, as
they need to determine how to mitigate the advantage keyboard and mouse-using players would
have over those using controllers.[41]
Titled "Game Preview Edition", the early access version for the Xbox One was released on
December 12, 2017 in both digital and physical formats.[65] To promote it, Microsoft performed real-
life supply crate drops in Australia in the week prior, with the crates containing Xbox
hardware, Battlegrounds merchandise, and other goods, using passcodes published alongside the
drop locations on social media.[66] The Xbox version also includes Xbox-specific in-game cosmetic
items, some which could be purchased directly rather than through in-game crates.[67] The official
release out of the Game Preview program occurred on September 4, 2018.[68][69]

Mobile versions
Following the Chinese publication deal for the Windows version, Tencent Games and PUBG
Corporation additionally announced that they were planning on releasing two mobile versions based
on the game in the country.[70][71] The first, PUBG: Exhilarating Battlefield, is an abridged version of
the original game, and was developed by Lightspeed & Quantum Studio, an internal division
of Tencent Games.[72] The second, PUBG: Army Attack, includes more arcade-style elements,
including action taking place on warships, and was developed by Tencent's Timi Studio.[73] Both
versions are free-to-play, and were released for Android and iOS devices on February 9,
2018.[74][75] The games had a combined total of 75 million pre-registrations, and ranked first and
second on the Chinese iOS download charts at launch.[75] Following a soft launch in Canada, an
English version of Exhilarating Battlefield, localized simply as PUBG Mobile, was released worldwide
on March 19, 2018.[76][77][78]

PlayStation 4
With the announcement of the Xbox release, PUBG Corporation stated that there were plans to port
to additional platforms, such as the PlayStation 4.[79][80][81] In an interview shortly after Gamescom,
Greene said that their deal with Microsoft did not exclude a PlayStation 4 port, but that their focus at
the time was only on the Windows and Xbox One version, given the small size of their
team.[63][49] When asked about it in January 2018, Kim stated that the team released the game first on
the Steam and Xbox Game Preview early access programs as they both easily allowed in-
development games to be released and updated over time, which contrasted with Sony's lack of
their own early access program, as well as their strict quality control for even completed
games.[82] The PlayStation port was officially announced in November, and was released on
December 7, 2018. PUBG Corporation studio head Brian Corrigan said that while they had had a
small team working on the PlayStation 4 port for some time, it was only until the Xbox One port was
mostly completed that they began fully working on the PlayStation port.[83] The PlayStation 4 version
of the game includes platform-exclusive customization items, specifically the outfit of Nathan
Drakefrom the Uncharted series, and Ellie's backpack from The Last of Us.[84] A short live-action film
to promote the PlayStation 4 release was directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and starred Jason
Mitchell.[85]

PUBG Lite
PUBG Lite is a free version of Battlegrounds that is meant to be better playable on low-end
computers by having significant reductions in graphic details and other features, but is otherwise
feature complete with the full game. The version is meant to be played in regions where the game's
minimum specifications may be difficult for average players to achieve, such as areas in Southeast
Asia, with a beta launch first releasing in Thailand in January 2019.[86]
Esports
To celebrate the game surpassing two million copies sold, Bluehole announced a 2017 Charity
Invitational event, inviting 128 players to compete over their official Twitch.tv channel to raise money
for the Gamers Outreach Foundation, with Bluehole matching all donations up to US$100,000.[87] The
competition ran in early May 2017, and raised at least US$120,000 from viewers along with
Bluehole's US$100,000 match, and served as a prototype for future esports events for the
game.[88] During the August 2017 Gamescom event, Bluehole and ESL organized the
first Battlegrounds invitational tournament, with a $350,000 prize pool. Separate events were held for
solo players, two-player teams, two-player teams fixed to first-person perspective, and four-player
squads. Each event featured three matches, with the player or team scoring the highest across all
three named winners.[34][89][90]
Greene said that while he had envisioned the battle royale format to be a spectator sport since
his ARMA II mod, their approach to making Battlegrounds an esport would be a matter of taking
"baby steps". Greene said that they would not actively pursue esports until after the game was fully
released and that all major bugs were eliminated. The Gamescom 2017 event demonstrated the
issues surrounding the logistics of running a large Battlegrounds tournament with a large number of
players involved, and they had worked alongside ESL to explore how to do this effectively in the
future. Further, Greene stated there was also the need to establish a format for presenting
a Battlegrounds match to make it interesting to spectators, which he thought would take some time
to develop given the nature of the emergent gameplay, comparing it to established first-person
shooters and multiplayer online battle arena esport games.[91] A 20-team, 80-player tournament
produced by Intel took place in Oakland in November 2017, with a prize pool of US$200,000.[92][93]

Reception
Reception

Aggregate score

Aggregator Score

PC: 86/100[94]

PS4: 72/100[95]
Metacritic
XONE: 85/100[96]

iOS: 82/100[97]

Review scores

Publication Score

Game Informer 9.5/10[98]

GameSpot 8/10[99]

IGN 9.5/10[100]

Polygon 10/10[101]

USgamer [102]
 PCGamesN 9/10[103]

Battlegrounds received "generally favorable reviews" on all platforms, with the exception of the
PlayStation 4 version which received "mixed or average reviews", according to review
aggregator Metacritic.[94] During both its early access phase and after, the game also surpassed
numerous player-count records. Bluehole released statistics for the first four months of release that
showed that over ten million rounds of Battlegrounds had been played, effectively equal to more
than 25,000 man-years of time.[104] Data by SteamSpy showed that Battlegrounds had surpassed
long-standing popular titles in concurrent player count on Steam, such as Fallout 4 and Grand Theft
Auto V, eventually overtaking Dota 2, the most played game on the platform for years, in August
2017.[105][106] The following month, the game had its peak concurrent player count reach over 1.3
million, surpassing Dota 2's all-time record of 1.29 set in March 2016.[107][108][109] The game then
reached a concurrent player count of two million in October 2017,[110] and three million by the end of
the year.[111] The game has also been shown popular in South Korean PC bangs; analysis firm
Gametrics reported that Battlegrounds had surpassed Overwatch and became the second-most
played game in the country by August 2017, only behind League of Legends,[112] it subsequently
surpassed League of Legends by October 2017.[113] Battlegrounds's popularity from Chinese players
led to a large increase in users of Steam from that geographic region, and by November 2017, more
than half of users knew Chinese (superseding English, which was the primary language in the
platform) due to the game's availability.[55]
Several journalists commented on the game's rapid growth towards a large player base for a game
that was still in early access. Greene had confidence that the game could reach over a million
players within a month, but some of his development team were only anticipating around 200,000 to
300,000 within the first year, and were surprised by its performance in its first month.[114] Greene
himself believed that the strong growth was buoyed by non-traditional promotional channels like
Twitch streamers and other content creators, which they have since worked to introduce new
gameplay elements ahead of public release.[63] IGN's Rad believed that the popularity of the game
was due to its fast-paced nature compared to similar type games available at the time, such
as H1Z1 and DayZ. She thought that the design balanced the solitary periods when the player is
scavenging or sneaking around with those of being in combat with others, and the approach is
readily accessible to new players with very little waiting time to get into a new match.[115] Andy Moore
for Glixel considered that Battlegrounds's popularity comes from how the game encouraged players
to engage due to the situation they are placed in rather than from the player's own disposition,
comparing it to the Stanford prison experiment, and thus able to capture the interest of players who
may normally eschew these types of games.[116]
Rock Paper Shotgun's Michael Johnson described Battlegrounds as "a tactical shooting sandbox, a
story generator, and a horror game all in one", providing some of the "highest highs" in multiplayer
gaming as reason for its popularity.[117] Rob Zacny for Waypoint found that Battlegrounds offered the
same type of entertainment experience for viewers that many other player-vs-player survival
games have, but because of the lack of persistence, players were more likely to experiment with
resources rather than hoard them, leading to humorous or unexpected situations that are often
absent in survival games and making the title more enjoyable to watch and play, leading to its
popularity.[118] Jeff Grubb of Venture Beat considered Battlegrounds as a paradigm shift in the first-
person shooter market similar to how Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare also changed the landscape of
shooters when it was released in 2007, and believed it did this by being an anti-Call of Duty in terms
of pacing and strategy.[119]
Battlegrounds is considered the defining game of the battle royale game genre due to its popularity,
even though other games, including Greene's previous mods, were already on the market.[120] After
its large early access sales numbers, other games followed with battle royale mechanics, with either
existing games that added a battle royale mode or fully new games. Notably, Epic Games updated
their in-development title Fortnite, a sandbox-based survival game that included the ability to
construct fortifications, to include a battle royale mode that retained the fortification aspects. Known
as Fortnite Battle Royale, Epic later released it as a standalone free-to-play game in September
2017. Shorty after its release, Bluehole expressed concerns about the game, acknowledging that
while they cannot claim ownership of the battle royale genre, they feared that since they had been
working with Epic for technical support of the Unreal engine, that they may have had a heads-up on
planned features they wanted to bring to Battlegrounds and could release it first.[121] PUBG
Corporation later filed a lawsuit against Epic Games Korea in January 2018, alleging that Fortnite
Battle Royale was infringing the copyright of Battlegrounds.[122] However, the lawsuit was closed by
PUBG in June 2018 for undisclosed reasons.[123]
Greene had expressed concern on the large number of games that have
simply cloned the Battleground mechanics, particularly in China where clones of Battlegrounds are
considered a new genre of "chicken-eating game" (based on the "winner winner chicken dinner" line
to a match winner in Battlegrounds).[124][125] Greene said "I want this genre of games to grow. For that
to happen you need new and interesting spins on the game mode. If it's just copycats down the line,
then the genre doesn't grow and people get bored."[120]Greene claimed no ownership of the battle
royale or last man standing genres, but believed that the clones were taking some specific
mechanics he had developed in Battlegroundsand prior mods, such as the initial parachuting
segment or the red-zone bombing runs, and would like to see legislation to give developers such as
himself protection against these types of concepts as well as improve creativity as developers invent
new approaches to mimic such innovations.[126] Battlegrounds's explosive growth and how it
popularized the battle royale genre was considered to be one of the top stories in the video game
industry during 2017.[127][128][129]
Prior to release of their mobile versions, PUBG Corporation initiated legal action in the Northern
Distinct Court of California against Chinese game publisher NetEase in January 2018, claiming that
their mobile games Rules of Survival and Knives Out infringe on Battlegrounds's copyrights. PUBG's
lawsuit asserts that Rules of Survival is "a copyrightable audio-visual work, individually and/or in
combination with other elements of Battlegrounds", and identified several elements that appear
similar in both games. While some of these elements are common features of a battle royale game,
PUBG asserted that other elements reference specific facets of Battlegrounds, such as references to
chicken for winning a game or using cookware as weapons or armor, makes Rules of Survival imply
a connection to Battlegrounds. PUBG seeks both monetary damages and requiring NetEase from
further distribution of the games. NetEase, in responding to PUBG's request to Apple to remove the
games, denied that their games violated Battlegrounds's copyrights.[130][131]

Sales
Battlegrounds made US$11 million in the first three days of its Windows early access release in
March 2017.[132] By the second week of April, the game had sold over one million copies, with a peak
player count of 89,000,[133] SuperData Research estimated that the game's April sales
exceeded US$34 million, putting it as one of the top 10 highest grossing revenue games for the
month and exceeding revenue from Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.[134] By May
2017, the game had sold over two million copies, with total gross revenues estimated
at US$60 million.[135][136] Within three months of its early access release, it had surpassed over five
million copies sold,[137] and Bluehole announced it had exceeded US$100 million in sale
revenue.[138] Battlegrounds reached this four million mark faster than Minecraft, which took over a
year to reach similar sales figures while it was in its paid-beta development period.[139]
By September 2017, Bluehole's value, as tracked by a firm that tracks private Korean corporations,
increased five-fold from June of that year to a value of US$4.6 billion, primarily due
to Battlegrounds.[49] By December 2017, PUBG Corporation reported that there were more than 30
million players worldwide between the Windows and Xbox versions.[140] The research film SuperData
estimated that Battlegrounds drew in more than US$712 million in revenue within 2017.[141] By
February 2018, the game had sold over thirty million on Steam according to SteamSpy.[142] The
following month, Gabe Newell stated that the game was the third highest-grossing game of all time
on the platform.[143]
Within three days of going live on the Xbox Live Preview Program in mid-December 2017, Microsoft
announced that Battlegrounds had sold more than a million copies on the platform. Alongside this,
Microsoft announced that Battlegrounds would be offered as a free add-on for those buying the Xbox
One X console through the end of 2017.[144] A month after release, the Xbox version had sold more
than four million copies and was the fourth bestselling game in the United States, according to The
NPD Group.[145][146] By March 2018, the game had sold forty million copies across all platforms, which
had risen to over fifty million by June, averaging over 87 million players daily with over 400 million
players in total.[147][148] The mobile version in particular had over 100 million downloads by August
2018,[149] and exceeded 225 million by October 2018,[150] a figure higher than the combined player
base for Fortnite at nearly the same point in time. The bulk of these players are in Asian countries
such as China and India, where PUBG Mobile was released before Fortniteand can run on lower-
powered mobile hardware.[151][152] China has the game's largest player base,[150] and PUBG is the most
popular online game in India, as of 2018.[153]
PUBG Mobile was the second most-downloaded mobile game of 2018, with nearly 300 million
downloads worldwide. The game's largest market was China, which accounted for 29% of the
game's downloads, followed by India and the United States each with about 10% (30 million) of its
downloads. It was the most-installed battle royale game of 2018, with about 200 million more installs
than Fortnite, which received 82 million installs on mobile devices.[154]
The PlayStation 4 version of Battlegrounds sold 7,447 copies within its first week on sale in Japan,
which placed it at number fourteen on the all format sales chart.[155]

Awards
While still in early access, Battlegrounds won the "Best Multiplayer Game" and was also nominated
for the categories "Game of the Year" and "Best Ongoing Game" at The Game Awards 2017.[156] The
game's nomination for "Game of the Year" created some debate, being the first early access title to
be named for one of the top industry awards.[157][158] Also, about a month before it was released, the
game won "Best Multiplayer Game" and "PC Game of the Year" at the 35th Golden Joystick
Awards,[159] whereas its other nominations were for "Studio of the Year" (PUBG Corporation) and
"Ultimate Game of the Year".[160] It also won the "Breakout Game of the Year" award at PC
Gamer's end of the year awards,[161] whereas its other nomination was for "Game of the
Year".[162] Polygon ranked the game second on their list of the 50 best games of 2017,[163] and The
Verge named it one of their 15 Best Games of 2017,[164] while Entertainment Weekly ranked it
seventh on their "Best Games of 2017" list.[165]
Following release, Battlegrounds has been nominated and won several industry awards, including
winning Best Multiplayer Game at the 2017 Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards 2017,
and Best Action Game at the 2017 D.I.C.E. Awards.

Year Award Category Result Ref

Best Multiplayer Game Won

[159][160]
2017 35th Golden Joystick Awards
PC Game of the Year Won
Year Award Category Result Ref

Ultimate Game of the Year Nominated

Best Multiplayer Game Won

[156]
The Game Awards 2017 Best Ongoing Game Nominated

Game of the Year Nominated

Big Apple Award for Best Game of [166]

New York Game Awards 2018 Nominated
the Year

Action Game of the Year Won

Outstanding Achievement in
Nominated
Game Design
D.I.C.E. Awards [167][168]

Outstanding Achievement in
Won
Online Gameplay

2018
Game of the Year Nominated

[169][170]
NAVGTR Awards Game, esports Nominated

Esports Game of the Year Won

2018 SXSW Gaming Awards Excellence in Design Nominated [171][172]

Excellence in Multiplayer Won

Year Award Category Result Ref

Most Promising New Intellectual

Nominated
Property

Trending Game of the Year Won

Video Game of the Year Nominated

Best Design Nominated

18th Game Developers Choice

Innovation Award Nominated [173][174]
Awards

Game of the Year Nominated

Evolving Game Nominated

14th British Academy Games [175][176]

Multiplayer Nominated
Awards

Original Property Nominated

[177][178]
Game Critics Awards 2018 Best Ongoing Game Nominated

2018 Teen Choice Awards Choice Videogame Nominated [179][180]

Still Playing Award Nominated

36th Golden Joystick Awards [181][182]

Mobile Game of the Year (PUBG

Won
Mobile)
 Year Award Category Result Ref

Xbox Game of the Year Nominated

The Game Awards 2018 Best Mobile Game (PUBG Mobile) Nominated [183]

Fan Favorite Multiplayer Game Nominated

Fan Favorite Battle Royale Game Nominated

Gamers' Choice Awards [184]

Fan Favorite Mobile Game (PUBG

Nominated
Mobile)

Australian Games Awards Shooter of the Year Nominated [185]

The game has also gained multiple award from individual press. Battlegrounds won the award for
"Best PC Game", "Best Multiplayer", and "Best Spectator Game" at the IGN Best of 2017
Awards,[186][187][188] whereas its other nominations were for "Game of the Year"[189] and "Best
Shooter".[190] It also won the award for "Best PC Game" at Destructoid's Game of the Year Awards
2017.[191] The game also won Giant Bomb's "Best Multiplayer", "Best Surprise", "Best Debut", and
"Game of the Year" awards, and was classified as a runner-up for the "Best Moment or Sequence"
award for the "chicken-eating game".[192][193][194][195] Eurogamer ranked PUBG fourth on their list of the
"Top 50 Games of 2017",[196] while GamesRadar+ ranked it 12th on their list of the 25 Best Games of
2017.[197] Game Informer gave it the award each for "Best Competitive Multiplayer" and "Best
Shooter" in their Best of 2017 Awards,[198][199] and also for "Best Competitive Multiplayer", "Best
Multiplayer Map" (Erangel), "Best Innovation", and "Shooter of the Year" in their 2017 Shooter of the
Year Awards.[200] In their Reader's Choice Best of 2017 Awards, the game won the "Best Competitive
Multiplayer" award, and was runner-up in the "Best Microsoft Exclusive" and "Best Shooter"
categories.[201][202][203]

Notes