The weekend plans are changing and I can see that. The recent trend of playing PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) is taking a toll over everyone’s social life which is serious! And so, I decided to decode the over-night (not literally) popularity of just another game on the play store or the iOS App store.
About the Game
Background:
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Mobile game has been rolled out by Tencent Games and is available for both Android and iOS phones. It is a typical hunger game wherein you do not have anything to start with. You scavenge and collect weapons and equipment on your way. The game ends with the last man standing among the hundred players who battle on an island.
The game can accommodate unto 100 players, offering the user 3 ways to participate.
- Solo
- Duo
- Squad (4 players)
The interesting part is that the area keeps on decreasing which increases the difficulty of the game.
The last man standing is rewarded with a chicken dinner and so the game is not for the vegetarians (just kidding).
The Gaming Experience:
The game uses similar elements to PC and Xbox game, but uses on-screen controls. These can be customized to suit the size of your device. It is quite smooth for the high-end phones which goes without saying but as you reach the mid-range processor powered phones, you may see some lags.
Also, the game freezes sometimes. Typically, it runs smoothly with a reported 32ms average ping on a network.
The Rumors Follow:
The game is criticized for having a lot of bugs and the presence of cheaters. In my personal experience, I have encountered cheaters as well a lot of the bugs that are mentioned. However, these problems are bound to happen to any game of its size and the company assures us that they are working hard on these issues especially their anti-cheat systems.
The Kickass Marketing
Talking in Numbers:
- The game earned around $22 million since the Royale Pass went live in June. That’s an increase of a whopping 190% compared to the $7.6 (approximately) million it grossed between May 16 and Jun. 18.
- App Store and Google Play users are spending an average of approximately $650,000 per day worldwide, compared to the $220,000 per day they spent in the previous period. PUBG Mobile’ hasn’t made less than an average of $450,000 per day since the introduction of the Royale Pass, whereas before it never grossed more than $343,000 per day.”
What did they do to go viral?
- Wow!
The most intelligent step by PUBG Mobile was that they did not take any risks and launched the game just for limited users at a time. This way the game got the first few-users review and the game was perfected by the coders. They follow the same practice later by releasing beta versions to select audience before updating their main game.
- It is for everyone!
The decision to make the game free and available for both Android and iOS users to enjoy PUBG Mobile was again a good one. Moreover, the game for small screens was kept identical to the game for desktop, except the controls. This also boosted the player base because of the similar desktop and mobile gaming experience.
- Connecting friends:
One of the reasons it garnered much love was the ability to play with your friends (up to 4 as squads), this drastically increased the adoption for the game as one person could bring in three more. Additionally, the Facebook friend list feature further eased this by allowing people who already knew each other to play together,
- Streaming by Influencers, they are not just for lifestyle:
To better understand what streamers and viewers wanted from the PUBG Mobile gaming experience, the team spent three months streaming games themselves and watched an inordinate amount of gaming streams.
Content creators and Twitch streamers were a remarkable part of the marketing plan. The Youtube sensations did it all right and the game got the taste of the overnight success.
Cut it!
There is no denial of the fact that the game is awesome to an extent but the amalgamation of marketing and well-thought steps made it more awesome!
With this, I leave you to wonder if the game is going to survive for a long-time or its success will be as long-term as of Pokemon Go.
Till then, let’s meet at the island!