PlayerUnknown"s Battlegrounds was once not only the king of the battle royale genre but also the most popular game on Twitch and Steam, charting a course of popularity not seen before and breaking multiple records along the way.
The higher they climb, the harder they fall. Since its highs at the start of the year, PUBG has been losing players every month, culminating in the loss of almost half of its player base. This is true of both the concurrent player base and the average player base. Compared to 3.2 million peak players in January, PUBG has only drawn 1.75 million in the last 30 days; average player counts have dropped by 50% to only around 792,000 in the same period.
This is, of course, likely a result of the recent explosion in the popularity of Fortnite, a battle royale game that may have followed in PUBG"s footsteps initially but has now manifestly overshadowed it. Such a meteoric fall in the game"s player base may also be the reason why PUBG Corp. has discounted the game on Steam for the first time earlier this week, bringing its price down to a more affordable $19.99.
PUBG Corp. may be accusing Epic Games of stealing their ideas when it comes to the battle royale genre, but as has become clear in recent days, the success of the free-to-play title has certainly made the developer take notice, and has even inspired the release of a smaller map and event pass clearly inspired by Fortnite.
Source: Steam Charts via VG247