I spent the past five days watching the Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds Global Invitational, looking on as people shoot at each other in showdowns that aren’t officially stag and hen dos gone wrong. But don’t listen to Brendan “Plunk” Greene. PUBG isn’t about winning, it’s about watching people get away with stuff that they shouldn’t and laughing when things go horribly wrong.
Words are ill-equipped to describe how dull this week’s Steam Charts truly are. Read on to see how I combat that. But also, thank goodness there’s at least the interesting feature that Plunkbat has, for the first time since it shot to the top of the charts on its release, dropped to third place. Its year-long grip on the top spot was beginning to waver in recent weeks, increasingly finding itself at #2 in the face of a big new release. Now its weakening dominance has seen it slip another spot down. Could Plunkles be seeing its rule coming to an end?
Update: So, on first look, the grenade seems to land right between the two players in the clip above, and yet somehow doesn't kill them when it explodes, which made the casters (and me) think it was a bug.
However, some people in the comments have pointed out that, actually, it's the camera angle that's off, and that the grenade lands a fair distance away. It's close enough to do damage, but far enough to avoid killing the two players.
You can see the proof below, tweeted out by one of the PUBG team. The short clip from another angle shows the grenade bouncing over the players' heads, while the image shows where the grenade actually ends up. Now, you can make your own mind up about whether it's close enough to warrant finishing off a downed enemy, but it's definitely not a bug.
Original story: "How is he alive?" was the call from caster Pansy, summing up what everybody who watched the clip above was thinking.
Shroud, battling in a 1v2 during the PUBG Charity Showdown, had just popped a ridiculous headshot on Vard to send him to his knees on a rooftop. Vard's teammate, DerOlli, was nearby, and scampered over to revive his ally. It was an opportunity too good to miss.
Shroud pulled out a grenade, jumped and released it. It looped through the air, bounced once, and nestled perfectly between his two enemies. And then...well, you saw what happened, leaving the casters in a stunned, slightly awkward silence.
I've never actually encountered this type of glitch in regular play, but it shows just how big an issue bugs remain for PUBG, which its creator Brendan Greene, aka PlayerUnknown, has admitted is not yet ready to become a major esport.
The Charity Showdown formed part of the PUBG Global Invitational event, which is wrapping up this weekend. You can keep up with it on Twitch.
PUBG custom matches "won't have an associated cost" during beta but may charge in future, so said the battle royale's developer earlier this month. Brendan Greene, aka PlayerUnknown himself, has now explained PUBG Corp "can’t provide people with free servers" as doing so is not financially viable.
In conversation with PCGamesN, Greene says paywalls are required—be that with real money or in-game currency.
"I was a modder for many years, and I didn’t expect ARMA to provide me with free servers to mod on, and it’s the same with this," Greene says. "We can’t provide people with free servers. There has to be a way to pay for servers through some sort of wall—either points, BP or money.
"We just can’t provide free servers for everyone, it’s just not a sustainable business model. I still pay for ARMA 3 servers to this day, because that’s just how the world works."
According to Steam Charts, PUBG's peak concurrent player count over the last 30 days hit 1,438,538 (689,670 average). Nevertheless, Greene tells PCGamesN "sales of a game can only last you so long".
For some slightly more outlandish PUBG reading/viewing, let me point you towards this: Cirque du Soleil meets PUBG at the Global Invitational opening ceremony.
After the big teams, big bants, and beefy vehicles of last weekend’s Metal Rain, things will take a turn for the serious with the next Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds event mode. Inspired by the PUBG Global Invitational tournament raging over in Berlin, this week’s event will play by the official digital sports rules, where the tingly blue circle moves faster, the red bombing zone is disabled, good weapons are more common, and everyone is locked to the first-person camera. Serious rules for serious gaming. The PGI 2018 event mode starts tonight, and do be sure to wear your serious free PGI outfit while playing.
I’ve been watching the PUBG Global Invitional on the ground in Berlin (yep, it’s even hotter), but before the pro-plunkers went to bat I got the chance to sit down with Playerunknown himself. Playerunknown is also known as Brendan Greene, the lead designer of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. I asked Greene about how PUBG Corp handles player toxicity, and failed to convince him to embrace the objectively best name for his videogame.