Can PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Remain Popular Long-Term? > 자유게시판

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**PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds ** is already a huge part of the gaming scene. The multiplayer title has gone from record to record , smashing through various concurrent user records on Steam and achieving the unthinkable: outdoing Valve's own games on the distribution platform that it created. Since the game's launch, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has gone from a surprise hit to a FPS game Missions of the year contender, and that's nothing to be sniffed at.

Although there's no denying the game's popularity, it's fair to say that the game remains something of a raw experience. Players have ridden over the bumps of poor optimization and various glitches, as the title goes through tweak after tweak to try and get its Battle Royale -esque gameplay pitch perfect. That's certainly to be expected of a title built in the games-as-service model, even from games within AAA development, but when it comes to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds there are still areas where it is really ropey.

Related: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Developer Reveals Its Next Game

This puts the game at something of a crossroads. At the moment, it's unimaginable for such a hugely popular game to slip from the public eye, but the title needs to consolidate its place at the top of gaming, and needs to do so quickly. Nowhere is it harder to make a prolonged impression in gaming than in the online multiplayer scene, and although the spoils of victory are great the drop offs can be astronomical.

With that in mind, PUBG Corporation will be thinking about ways to not only maintain PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' position, but push it even further, and turn the game into an essential landmark of video games as a whole. As World of Warcraft shows, some games can become more than just games, particularly when it comes to building something around online play, but doing so requires a level of quality that few games can reach - and a smidgen of luck.

There's plenty that is still in the control of PUBG , though. For starters, the game's technical issues need to be addressed, and fixes need to be put in place sooner rather than later. After all, the FPS game beginner guide has now left the bubble of early access for PC, and now needs to stand on its own two feet as a finished product. Although PC gamers often have plenty of patience while a game is in early access, that can wear thin when the title is supposed to be a complete experience.

This is even more important when it comes to the console version of the game. PUBG is currently available through Xbox's Game Preview Program, and from a commercial perspective it has been incredibly successful by selling over 3 million copies in an incredibly short amount of time. However, the Xbox One version of the game has suffered tremendously from technical issues , and PUBG Corporation will have to carefully balance sorting out these serious limitations with further tweaks for the PC version of the game.

The importance of solving continued technical issues is not just down to delivering a satisfying gaming experience. Keeping promises to early supporters of a multiplayer game is extremely important, because it helps build a level of trust with a community at large. Conversely, failing to fix bugs and glitches (particularly those that are performance-related) can be extremely damaging to a game's brand.

One recent example is Friday the 13th: The Game . Although the title did not reach the heights of PUBG , the game was still a big financial success, with approximately 2 million units sold as at August 2017 which is nothing to be sniffed at for a horror-based game from a small studio. However, the game's ongoing bugs have proved to be its undoing, as the title slowly but surely lost player trust amid apologies from Illfonic and Gun Media . To make matters worse, the constant delays for the game's much-lauded single player mode have damaged its reputation further, leaving a permanent cloud over a game with plenty of potential and a large community of players.

PUBG could need to look over its shoulder in this respect, too. Fortnite has been making waves with its own Battle Royale -style gameplay , and its free-to-play status and comparatively more stable gameplay has led to players not only giving it a go, but sticking around too. The game is unlikely to be the only major competitor for PUBG 's crown, either, and if PUBG continues to have major success it is going to have to fend off competitors on a constant basis.

Part of this will be down to delivering a gameplay experience superior to those that try to emulate it; after all, why try a knock-off when the original is so good? But this is not the only trap that PUBG will need to avoid.

One pitfall that PUBG will need to watch out for is not to become too niche or difficult for players to get into. At the moment the sheer potential and power of PUBG is enough to keep new players coming and old players sticking around, but that's not going to last forever. Eventually, players will drop off as they are enticed by new games that hit the market. That doesn't mean purely direct competitors to PUBG , but games across the board - some of those highly anticipated games of 2018 will take PUBG players away regardless of whether they offer similar gameplay at all.

In order to solve this, PUBG will need to remain inviting to new players beyond its current hype. Thankfully the core gameplay dynamic of the game is simple enough for new players to grasp while the metagame is yet to become overly convoluted, and the game's developers will need to walk that fine line between delivering new content and making sure said content does not make it difficult for players to get into the game.

Something for PUBG Corporation to think on is the fate of H1Z1 . One one of the title's game modes, King of the Kill, sat extremely close to PUBG. As a matter of fact, it's where PUBG head honcho Brendan Greene cut his teeth and was extremely popular as a Steam early access game, even getting its own CW livestreamed eSports tournament . However, PUBG has been able to push above and beyond what H1Z1 could achieve, partly by delivering a more accessible and immediately interesting experience.

Another example of this is Star Wars Galaxies . The MMO saw release over a year before World of Warcraft , but a mixture of missing features and some truly inaccessible gameplay for newcomers stopped the game from growing. World of Warcraft was able to easily dwarf the player base of Galaxies , and the changes made to the Star Wars MMO over the years ended up failing to bring in major numbers of new players and also drew complaints and allegations of betrayal from long-term fans of the game.

Instead, World of Warcraft is a great example to follow: a core gameplay loop that was easy to get to grips with, and with enough steady changes to keep players occupied, keeping the game fresh when faced with competitors such as The Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning . Meanwhile, from a purely shooter perspective Overwatch shows a clear model on how to provide incremental change alongside maintaining an exciting main hook for new players.

However, Overwatch also provides one negative example that PUBG will want to avoid. Although the game's microtransaction business model has been lauded as one of the better ones on the market, it's still a symptom of the overall video game loot box problem that has been pervasive in the industry as a whole. PUBG also offers loot boxes, and already these have started to gather a little controversy, with some of the rarer items having ridiculous drop rates of their own.

Overwatch may have avoided controversy for its microtransactions, and PUBG may also manage to dodge this bullet, but that is not always the case. One major example of how microtransactions can kill a game's momentum is Evolve , the asymmetrical shooter from former Left 4 Dead developer Turtle Rock. The title had a hugely popular beta testing period, and a lot was expected of it when it launched proper.

However, that perception changed upon release. The game arrived with a huge array of DLC available, which left a sour taste in the mouths of players unimpressed by the lack of gameplay variety as a whole. That, mixed with limitations on how well the game worked out in the wild world of random online multiplayer, resulted in the game seeing a shocking drop-off in players, and the game eventually jumped to a free-to-play model that also failed to set the world alight.

In short, players need - and deserve - to feel supported. It's something that Turtle Rock didn't quite manage, and it's a problem that other games have also struggled with. Destiny 2 may have been one of the top trending video games of 2017 , resulting in some huge sales figures and extremely strong launch reviews, but a series of poor behind-the-scenes decisions from Bungie has left players unimpressed, and as a result the game has not had the same reach as its predecessor.

PUBG has something that both Destiny 2 and Evolve lacked, though: the sense of being unique in the marketplace. Although other games exist in the Battle Royale arena subgenre, PUBG is seen as the pick of the crop, having helped popularize that style of multiplayer gameplay more than any other game around. There's a significance behind this, and as long as PUBG stays grounded then there's every chance that its success can continue.

In short, PUBG Corporation needs to keep gamers at the heart of its decision making. Those performance issues need to be fixed, and gameplay variety needs to grow at a rate that keeps the current player base happy. Moves like banning 100,000 cheaters will hopefully keep the game's community a less toxic place, but there's still work to do to make sure that PUBG remains a permanent long-term gaming fixture. As long as the team's focus remains in the right place, though, there's every chance that PUBG will continue as a serious force in the industry.

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