The popular battle royale game PUBG recently switched to a free-to-play business model. The transition to free-to-play proved to be a huge success, with developer Krafton stating today that the game had a 486 percent rise in new players in the week after the changeover.
This is faster than the player growth rate saw when PUBG was first released in 2017. In countries like the Commonwealth of Independent States, Southeast Asia, and South America, the growth rate for new players was even higher, at 537 percent.
As part of the shift, PUBG surpassed 690,000 total “active” gamers on Steam, according to Krafton. Not only are more people playing PUBG now that the business model has changed, but the average playtime on PC and console has increased by more than 100 percent since the transition. According to Krafton, PUBG had a 400 percent boost in average playtime on PlayStation.
PUBG’s multiple tutorials were the most-played content throughout the F2P transition, according to Krafton, while the Taego and Erangel maps were the most played since January 12.
For those who play PUBG for at least one hour between 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET on January 27 and 3:59 p.m. PT / 6:59 p.m. ET on January 30, Krafton is giving away special in-game goodies. The Orbital Vanguard skins will be available to anyone who check-in between today and February 17th.
PUBG had sold over 75 million copies across PC and consoles before the F2P move. With the mobile game, New State Mobile and a spin-off dubbed The Callisto Protocol from Dead Space and Call of Duty veteran Glen Schofield’s new firm, the game’s universe continues to expand.
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