PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds tops Steam concurrency, drawing from CS:GO’s playerbase

August 28, 2017 12:30 PM

Remember a few weeks back when PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds took League of Legends to town on Twitch, beating Riot’s giant for eyeball share on the platform during the Dota 2 tourney for the first time ever? Twitch is apparently not the only place the game is kicking butt and taking names: It’s now surpassed Dota 2’s concurrency numbers on Steam, putting it at #1 – an unheard of feat for a non-Valve video game.

Bluehole creative director Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene himself tweeted on Saturday when PUBG broke the 800,000 concurrent players threshold, but the game kept climbing, eventually peaking at 878K to Dota 2’s 843K on Sunday.

SteamSpy’s Sergey Galyonkin had been tracking the game’s meteoric rise in preparation for the new record, pointing out that PUBG is actually pulling heavily from CS:GO to get those numbers. “It’s not surprising: if you like CS:GO there is a chance you’ll like PUBG,” SteamSpy opines. “If you DON’T like Payday 2 but like shooters, PUBG is appealing.”

The game has been making SuperData’s top 10 list for revenue for the last several months. Overseas, Tencent attempted to buy out Bluehole Studio but was rebuffed, so it merely purchased a stake in the company, while Black Desert showrunner and Korean conglom Kakao recently inked a deal to publish the game in Korea.

If you’re wondering why I’ve asked that question. PUBG’s CCU is the green line on this graph from @steamcharts. pic.twitter.com/RxIk3JOteT

— Steam Spy (@Steam_Spy) August 25, 2017