The true surprise hit of this year, one that no one saw coming, has been PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the multiplayer survival battle royale action game on PC that has gone on to sell 8 million copies- and it’s still in Early Access. And yet, it shows no signs of slowing downs, breaking all manner of records by the day.
You know who else did not see any of this coming? The game’s creator, Brendan ‘PlayerUnknown’ himself. Speaking to GameReactor, he said, “I’ve been shocked at the speed at which we’ve been selling copies of Battlegrounds. We’ve actually just broken 700K concurrent players on Tuesday when you least expect it!
“It’s a credit to the team because we are not letting it go to our heads. These are huge numbers, but because it’s happening so fast, there’s no real time to take it in. So we’re really just focused on planning for the future. My boss is always in meetings these days, trying to find new hires or new locations or planning for the global service we’re trying to provide.
“I keep saying, we are not in a sprint but in a marathon. This is something we’re planning to do for quite a long time.”
It’s good to see that they are keeping an even hear- or at least professing to. Other games that have gotten too popular too fast have ultimately become victims of their early successes previously, such as ARK: Survival Evolved and DayZ. Given how fundamentally fun PUBG is, we can only hope that it won’t meet such a fate itself.
