Update August 4, 2017: Player Unknown's Battlegrounds hit more than 500,000 concurrent players.
The march of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' popularity appears to know no bounds, the game just hit a new milestone: more than 500,000 concurrent players.
We just broke 500k! Thank you all so very much for your continuing support! <3
pic.twitter.com/FXnsy6twGX
— PLAYERUNKNOWN (@PLAYERUNKNOWN)
August 4, 2017
Frankly, that's a phenomenal achievement. It's now the second most popular game on Steam by that metric, only falling behind Dota 2. Valve's Moba is still 200,000 concurrent players ahead, but suddenly that doesn't seem like all that much ground to cover.
Update July 31, 2017: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has broken yet another record.
The sensation that is PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues. Just days after we learned it has sold six million copies without having left the cocoon of Early Access, its creator announces that it has become the most-played non-Valve game on Steam ever.
Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene himself tweeted the news.
We now hold the record for the highest peak player count of any non-Valve game! GG WP everyone <3
pic.twitter.com/cHjXPeSE8p
— PLAYERUNKNOWN (@PLAYERUNKNOWN)
July 30, 2017
Valve's babies Couter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 have had the top spots locked down for ages and enjoy various advantages as their creators also own Steam, so third-party games are essentially fighting for third place. In winning that fight, Battlegrounds has taken down such giants as Fallout 4 and GTA V. And it's not even (properly) out yet.
Update July 28, 2017: Another week another million copies.
According to a press release announcing PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds first offline esports invitational, the game has sold six million copies. Just last week the game had broken through five million sales.
This is getting silly now.
Update July 21, 2017: A quick look at Steam Spy will tell you PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds just won't stop.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, in case you've been busy fighting an actual battle royale for the past few months, is the game of the moment. It's now passed five million owners on Steam in an incredibly short amount of time.
It's perhaps most impressive given that it only hit four million on June 29, less than a month ago. As always with
Steam Spy, the figures aren't necessarily accurate so take them with a pinch of salt, but getting even close to a million copies sold a month - especially without a single price decrease - is going to secure any game's future. Were everyone to decide to stop buying PUBG literally tomorrow, it'd probably still be in a good spot.
It's regularly the third most played game on Steam, and is catching up with CS:GO in both average and peak concurrents, via
SteamCharts. Even after all that, it doesn't seem to have gone to PlayerUnknown's - Brendan Greene to his parents - head, who has been dealing with
various dramas expertly.
The game surely can't keep up this pace for long - but I would have said the same about three months ago when it first became a hot topic. I still don't own it, for example, and many seem reticent to go all-in while it's still in Early Access. That initial full launch window, especially if it's the first time the game sees a significant discount, could prove disastrous to wallets everywhere.
Original story, May 25, 2017: April’s digital PC sales figures are in and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is topping the charts for premium PC digital sales. It has even broken into the top ten overall games, alongside the likes of subscription titles like World of Warcraft, as well as games with microtransaction models such as League of Legends.
The battle royale survival game sits in seventh place on the overall digital earnings chart, right above World of Warcraft (East) but below World of Warcraft (West). Unsurprisingly, LoL tops the charts with Korean tactical FPS Crossfire coming in second place. The full table can be seen below.
Despite having been in Early Access for barely two months, PUBG has received a lot of critical acclaim for its tight, focused gameplay and tendency to produce exciting emergent narratives. Despite its quality, I don’t think many would have predicted just how popular the game has become. Least of all the developers themselves, who are
struggling to keep up with the demand for patches and updates.
You can head on over to the the
Steam page to see what all the fuss is about. Or you can check out a more detailed breakdown of last month’s figures at
SuperData Research.