PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds sells 10 million copies – CNET


PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds sells 10 million copies

Let’s put the viral game sensation in context.

Insane. Ridiculous. Unbelievable. Those are just a few of the words I’d use to describe the success of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

PUBG has now officially sold 10 million copies since March, which is a feat for any game without the words “Grand Theft Auto,”http://www.cnet.com/”Mario,”http://www.cnet.com/”Call of Duty” or “Pokemon” in the name.

But PUBG isn’t just any game. At the time of this writing, it’s still a buggy, unfinished Steam Early Access title with only a single level you can play.

It’s a heck of a level, mind you: you and 99 other players parachute onto an 8-square-kilometer island filled with deadly weaponry, and use your wits to be the last man standing. It’s one of the most stressful, addictive things I’ve ever played

Sean Hollister/CNET

So 10 million? Bonkers. And sales only appear to be accelerating. As you can see in my handy-dandy chart, the game went from selling 1 million copies a month to 2 million a month back in June, and now it might even be doing 3 million a month. 

Let’s put that in context. Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which also released in March, only sold 3.92 million copies as of July. 

Of the top 50 best-selling games of all time (according to Wikipedia), only one might serve as a historical precedent: Minecraft, which was similarly released unfinished before its rise to fame. (Minecraft has sold over 121 million copies.)

But even Minecraft didn’t initially have viral popularity like this:

And PUBG hasn’t even arrived on Xbox yet. That’ll happen this fall.

So you might be wondering: Who the heck is PlayerUnknown, and where did this game come from? If so, you might want to check out our huge interview with the man behind it all

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