PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is one of the most popular games out there right now, as millions of people play the title virtually every day. What’s more, a recent charting of its numbers has revealed that the sales for the game have reached 30 million, which is a staggering amount for a new IP that was launched less than a year ago. And it’s not surprising given the popularity and word of mouth that has no doubt spread of the game. However, it may have plateaued.
Why do we say this? Well, a post on Twitter revealed that while the sales of the game continue to do well, the concurrent player numbers (or people playing the game at the same time) has actually gone down.
PUBG hit 30m in sales this week, but it is churning hard. Bluehole still not taking cheaters seriously enough imo pic.twitter.com/Iqjz8BPzVE
— Yuji Nakamura (@ynakamura56) February 14, 2018
This is actually very surprising, as since its March 2017 release, the number of concurrent players have gone up considerably with continued growth virtually every month. Yes, there had been small down points, but nothing on this scale before. It recently just breached 3.1 million concurrent players, a new record for Steam, and yet, now, it’s hovering just above 2.5 million.
So, what’s the reason for this? Well, it’s complicated, it could be nothing, an aberration because players aren’t playing the title at the same time, it happens. Another opinion is from the Twitter user who notes that the cheating in the game is getting out of hand and that might be turning experienced players off from it. 46% of all PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds players are from China, and new info from BattlEye revealed that 99% of all banned accounts were from China, so it’s possible that people are tired of all the cheating and nothing being done about it.
We’ll just have to see how this all plays out.