It’s been only two months since the early-access release of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Since then the game has made an estimated $34 million, a report by games market analyst SuperData suggests.
The report sees PUBG break into the top ten grossing games on PC, ranked by April 2017 earnings. It even sat ahead of the likes of Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for the month.
Without any doubt, PUBG is one of the most hyped games at the moment. Just by its prominence on Twitch—it has continually held a top-three position in the last 30 days, according to data site influencer.gg—it has demonstrated its potential as a spectator sport. Unsurprisingly, PUBG’s esports potential is a huge talking point in the scene.
TSM, for instance, didn’t think twice and signed two full-time streamers, Colton “Viss” Visser and Austin “Smak” Haggett, this month. While, to date, the only event that can be considered esports-like was a charity tournament that saw many of PUBG’s most prominent streamers battle it out, the game’s path towards esports is distinct.
With the addition of a free-floating spectator option alongside the possibility to create custom games, two important benchmarks for its future as an esport title were built into the game recently.
Then again, Brendan “PLAYERUNKNOWN” Green, who previously was involved in creating the Arma 2 mod DayZ: Battle Royale as well as H1Z1: King of the Hill, stressed that esports isn’t a priority for him just yet.
“We really truly believe that for any esport to form around Battle Royale, the game, number one, has to be stable, it has to be competitive and we have so much research and work to do to get it to that state,” Green told news site Esports Pro.
This is a completely reasonable approach, of course. Basically every major esports title grew organically, and often the developers only started supporting the scene after it nurtured itself into a considerable size.
With an estimated $34 million only two months into early access, PUBG developer Bluehole should have the resources to perfect the game—and make it the next esports hit.
PUBG is highly entertaining to watch and very popular already. The developer has a considerable amount of cash to work with, and—maybe most importantly—is led by the most experienced game developer in the genre.
