PUBG earned $712m in 2017 on PC alone. Here's what you need to realize.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is the most successful (premium) PC of 2017. It outpaced #2 Overwatch by nearly 2X. Why is this special?
- The game is not part of a franchise. Seven of the top 10 come from franchises, they're all sequels of some sort (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Destiny 2, GTA V, Battlefield 1, Guild Wars 2, Divinity- Original Sin 2, and the latest Rainbow Six game). The other two were Overwatch and Minecraft.
- It did not come from one of the big publishers. Bluehole is (was?) not a major force in the industry. Before PUBG they had two PC MMORPG's and a handful of mobile games. They only expected to sell 200k-300k copies of the game. The rest of the list is what you'd expect. Activision/Blizzard, EA, Take Two, Microsoft, UbiSoft, Valve take all the remaining spots aside from Larian's success with Divinity.
- It was an Early Access title for most of the year. They sold 15 million copies of what was essentially a "beta".
- ...But it didn't even hit Early Access until March. So all those sales came in nine months
- Overwatch launched in May of 2016. And has had a smoother path to success as they shipped a finished, polished, game. PUBG is out of Early Access and it is a great game, but it's nowhere near as polished and balanced.
- This doesn't include the revenue from Xbox One (plus whatever Microsoft paid for a period of exclusivity). Within a week of the PC version leaving Early Access the Xbox One version launched and that number doubled to 30 million copies
- PUBG caught on with streamers early. From the moment it launched the game had an active streamer base and that has paid a major role in their success.
- ...and finished 2017 as the second most watched esport game behind League of Legends. LoL averaged 157 million unique monthly users (UMU), PUBG saw 102m UMU. League was launched in October of 2009, it has an eight year head start! Blizzard's Hearthstone was third with 83m, DoTA2 at 65m, and Overwatch at 63m. Keep in mind that Overwatch is the one that just launched the "Overwatch League" and is trying to move esports further into the mainstream.
This is one of those lightning bolts out of the blue that you don't see very often, but it highlights a big rift in our industry. Few of the major publishing houses had this game on their radar as late as July of this year. I know this because I was on calls with executives from those companies that either had no clue what it was or dismissed it. They felt that it was "only a PC game" despite the fact that Microsoft had already announced their intent to publish on the Xbox One. The other excuse was that "It's only a $30 game".
The industry is much larger than it used to be. Yes, Activision, EA, Take Two, Microsoft, etc are the 800lb gorillas, but there are a lot more companies looking for their own "PUBG" in 2018.
We track over 500 publishers in the industry and another 3,500+ developers. There will be more success stories like Bluehole down the road. I can guarantee that.
(See the awesome work that Joost van Dreunen and his team at SuperData Research does. That's where I got the data.)
Congrats on making it to the end! Leave your thoughts in the comments or show up during our weekly Twitch streams about the business side of this industry and tell me I'm an idiot. Let's face it, you won't be the only one.
The Powell Group tracks over 500+ video game publishers and another 3,500+ developers across PC, Console, and mobile. Feel free to reach out to me here on LinkedIN or visit our site at www.powellgroupconsulting.com.
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7 年We love our clients!
Game Dev/Journalist
7 年The success of this game is pretty rad to hear about, but I'm not surprised when the interest for this type of game is huge right now thanks to games like Rust or the disappointment of the DayZ standalone. That and the fact that PUBG costs $30 USD for an early access which is a little ridiculous but look, they broke 700mil in less than a year. This shows that developers know what their peers want, unlike big time publishers, but that's old news. We make jokes about EA and their unfinished games in passing almost daily. That and how big publishers run some of the most beloved studios into the ground (Visceral, Bioware, etc.).
Senior Material Fulfilment and SME Semiconductors @ JLR
7 年Trouble with the bigger publishers is, I can't remember the last time they released a great game we all wanted to play. EA and Activision have shown they do not care about player experience and would rather have you spend the value of the game or more on micro transactions (Fifa Ultimate Team, CoD, Battlefield One, Mass Effect Andromeda etc). PUBG works because although it's in Alpha Stage it doesn't require you to spend money. You can earn points easily and they resent the value of loot items after a few days meaning you can continuously unlock new items that do not benefit you in the game. Everyone starts equal and I wish a lot more developers would do the same. But I won't hold my breath.