PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds started out as a humble mod but it has quickly become a powerhouse in the gaming industry. Bluehole might get worried now that PUBG seems to be losing players and returning to obscurity at the same brisk pace.
If it's true that numbers don't lie, PUBG is truly in an uncomfortable position. Its high speed race to the top of gaming world took about five months from September 2017 to January 2018 and roughly the same time from January to May 2018 to drop back to almost the same number of concurrent players it had in September 2017.
The game is not exactly dead, as it still had around concurrent players in the past 30 days, which pretty much means May 2018. It is still a huge drop from PUBG's peak back in January 2018 when the game boasted just under 1.6 million concurrent players.
So what exactly caused the meltdown? Certainly not the rampant hackers, terrible optimisation, lack of communication from developers and overall experience that was as fulfilling as a kick in the nuts. It was the dreaded Satan-spawned company called Epic Games who stole PUBG's original ideas and made a vastly different game that was merely set in the same genre.
Sarcasm aside, PUBG Corp did a poor job maintaining the game that was making them enough money to buy Fortnite altogether, before Epic decided to jump on the trend. Fortnite entering the battle royale market certainly rattled Bluehole's comfortable nest as they immediately announced they would sue Epic Games for copyright infringement. Sure enough, instead of investing more into saving their sinking flagship, Bluehole decided to indeed for being on the free market.
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The lawsuit looks more like Bluehole grasping at straws right now, but it remains to be seen if the court of law will humour their attempt. Meanwhile, Fortnite's growth doesn't seem to know end as Epic Games announced a $100.000.000 prize pool before forcing esports tournaments or proclaiming Fortnite is " ".
