PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was a very unexpected title in terms of popularity. After all, it was NOT the first battle royale game to hit the market, it was just the first to truly focus on just that aspect of things. When it came out on PC via Steam Early Access, no one expected it to become a global phenomenon, but it did, and then it moved to the Xbox One and grew even bigger. The popularity also drew the attention of China and its developers, and a deal was made.
Mainly, a Chinese developer known as Tencent made a deal to make and distribute a set of mobile games based on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and that’s exactly what they did this past weekend. They released PUBG: Army Attack and PUBG: Exhilarating Battlefield, and based on early numbers, the games are already massive hits. For the games are only available in China, yet, 75 million players pre-registered for it.
Exact numbers for players weren’t given, however, it is known that these two titles were on the top of China’s mobile downloads charts. Which is very telling given the popularity of mobile games in the country. So it looks like it was a good deal all around, and should the money roll in like many project, it could get even better.
Interestingly enough, a vast majority of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds PC players are from China. PlayerUnknown himself admitted this. While that shows the worldwide appeal for the game, it also raised some problems. For apparently, the country is also the highest in terms of cheaters, as the country’s laws don’t harp on video game cheating as much as others.
With the success of these two mobile titles, you have to wonder how it’ll impact the main game on both PC and Xbox One. We’ll have to wait and see.
