PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was one of the biggest titles last year. Which is interesting, as the game was only on PC for most of the year, and more than that, it was on Steam Early Access from release until mid-December. Yet, despite those hindrances, the game sold tens of millions of copies on PC, and broke Steam records in regards to concurrent players, and that hasn’t stopped in 2017. But, what might be the most surprising of all is the amount of money the game made.
SuperData Research did an extensive look at the games sold in 2017 and what their revenues were, and in the market of PC, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds topped everything by a landslide. It made $714 million dollars on its own, just on Steam. And since the game also came out on Xbox One last December, you can expect that number to be higher than it actually is. However, just for PC, that’s still dang impressive.
After all, it nearly doubled what the No.2 ranked PC game revenue wise did, and that was Overwatch! A game that has 35 million+ registered players. Yeah, they’re not all on PC, but there’s a large PC player base with that game. Other games it beat include Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Destiny 2, Grand Theft Auto V, Battlefield 1, and more.
Now, despite PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds success, it still has a long way to go before being a truly successful game title. What we mean by that is even with the launch of the “main game” on Steam (and soon to Xbox One), the game has a number of issues going on with it right now. Including major bugs and glitches, internet woes, and so much more. It’s not as bad as when it was on Steam Early Access, but it’s still kind of bad. Hopefully, this revenue will lead to more large-scale improvements.