PUBG fights to find its place in a world of Royal battle

A base of players in decline. Several blunders of public relations. And a gameplay that still seems unfinished. can PUBG turn his fortunes around, or does the game that has launched a whole genre just remember like a flash in the frying pan?

Last year, The battlefields of PlayerUnknown alone, the genre "royal battle" exploded in popularity. But Fortnite has gone over just as explosively, and by the end of the year, the rest of the game's triple-A shooter manufacturers will also be in action. PUBG has struggled to retain players, but as initiatives such as the new pbad do not satisfy them, the future of the game that has launched a genre seems more and more uncertain.

Since the beginning of 2018, PlayerUnknownOf Battlefield fought against a decreasing number of players. Steam Charts, a website that tracks the simultaneous players of a game, shows PUBG losing players since February, rising from an average of over one million players that month to around 800,000 in June. It's like feeling PUBG is losing its sense of identity in a fast-paced market of more royal battle games.

One of PUBG's reactions to the rush of competitors was to try to sue these competitors for copying his idea. Earlier this year, he sued the developer NetEase on his games Survival rules and Knives released. He also went after the biggest chicken dinner of all when he filed a lawsuit against Fortnite manufacturer Epic Games-which also makes Unreal Engine middleware that powers PUBG. PUBG Corporation has now abandoned this file. However, the action left the players less than encouraged PUBG, adding to a perception that PUBG Corp is too litigious.

Ironically, this is PUBG it's starting to feel more and more like Fortnite. He recently added an "Event Pbad" next to the latest version of his latest card, Sanhok. The $ 9.99 pbad allows players to meet certain challenges in return for cosmetic rewards, a system comparable to the "Battle Pbad" in Fortnite.

This is not the only change to the game that reacts to the popularity of Fortnite, which offers a faster experience filled with jetpacks, bounce pads and punchy rifles. FortniteThe shorter games are partly the result of his smaller card in play. Following the icy reception of the mbadive map of the Miramar Desert, which was so hated that the players deleted the files from their game to avoid playing them, PUBGThe next map of Sanhok was considerably smaller. The result was a map that the community has widely adopted, full of shootings and a faster mid-game.

But while Sanhok's emulation of FortniteThe fastest game style has been well received, the event pbad has collapsed. Cosmetics do not seem to matter so much PUBG as they do Fortnite. The Rewards of the Event Pbad include a handful of new clothing items and some currency in the game, but it does not offer the kind of limited boasting awards like Fortnite& # 39; s battle pbades. The addition of specific challenges for players to try can change the game in a fun way, but players are bristling at the fact that this system of progression is linked to a $ 10 charge, since the basic game does Is not free. Fortnite.

"We have supported this game since early access", a Reddit post with more than 61,000 upvotes. "PUBG has made more than $ 730 million, yet it's still not optimized, cheaters are endemic, the crates are locked behind the keys, and even after paying $ 30 for the game, they have now introduced this $ 9.99 Pbad Event. "

The introduction of revenue-enhancing systems has shocked many actors. It is easy to see the call from the point of view of the publisher. A study reported by gamesindustry.biz notes that 69% of Fortnite the players surveyed had spent money for the game, averaging $ 84.67 per person. The combat pbades were well received in other places where they were tried. Variety reports that PUBG Mobile saw an increase in revenues of 365% after setting up its own Royal Pbad at $ 9.99. But these games are free. It is more difficult to ask players to buy pbades when the rewards are less than exciting and that they have already paid for their game. In this light, PUBGThe event pbad was always a bet, one that seems to go bad for the moment.

These missteps PR distract from the fact that The battlefields of PlayerUnknown is a good game. The more methodical and position-oriented meta-game could be slower than games like Fortnite or Royal Kingdombut PUBG appeal to players who yearn for something more tactical and less frenetic. PUBG has retained an identity as a more deliberate and serious royal battle. But while that might have been enough when the market was young, it remains to be seen if being "the original royal battle" is enough.

Tencent is already investing in Elysium Rings, a PUBG clone that is almost indistinguishable in the gameplay but much less subject to technical breakdowns. And then there is the imminent specter of the royal battle modes in the upcoming AAA games, such as Battlefield V"Royale" and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4"Blackout", also leaves PUBG in a delicate position. This could have been the first, but if anyone can offer a similar tactical but technically superior experience, PUBG could be even more harm than Fortnite is already in question.

Meanwhile, players have the feeling that the basic gameplay is getting worse or worse with time. "We really feel that the performance has dropped significantly," says YouTuber's major jacktags in a recent video titled PUBG Performance Anxiety. "Maybe it's just me, but in the last few months, but my experience has been getting worse and worse."

The perception that PUBG is less playable than its competitors has been a mainstay of player complaints on social sites like Reddit. PUBGMbadive success has not helped the game overcome technical hurdles. Players are quick to note these ongoing problems, pointing to them as the main cause of the population's downfall.

"We could handle all the bugs, glitches, cheats and other nonsense at first while he was still legitimately ahead," said a Redditor. "We had the hope that the developers would keep their promises to keep turning the game into something great – well, it never happened."

For its part, PUBG Corporation seems determined to solve this problem, even if it is not at the level desired by the community.

"We've seen a lot of good feedback from players as a result of the team's recent improvements to game optimization, cheat and hacker removal, and server stability," said representative of PUBG Corporation. Kotaku by email. "We continue tirelessly to add corrections and improvements to the game with even more to come throughout next month, and beyond that, it should make things better."

The players have already heard similar things and have not yet seen the improvements that they would like. A lack of optimization could be the final water drop for players who were ready to wait. Smaller features such as map selection were canceled, and although special events like a crossbow or mbadive "war" mode caught the attention for a short time, they lost their novelty. PUBG continues to experiment with new features, but they all tend to disappear. Strong gameplay should retain a small group of fans, but PUBGThe challenge facing the Royal Battle Market will be to find a new identity other than "we did it first".