The PC and console version of the Battle Royale shooter franchise PUBG: Battlegrounds is the latest earnings release from developer Krafton on Friday. to the report According to him, it makes a lot more money after its transition to free-to-play in January.
According to the report, PC sales increased 61 percent year on year to $82,3 million. On console, sales growth was even greater, up 124 percent from the previous quarter and 274 percent year-over-year, but Krafton didn't put a number behind those increases. The game also saw a “nearly triple” increase in average monthly active users from Q2021 4.
PUBG: Battlegrounds was originally a paid game when it was released in early access on Steam in 2017, but the massive financial success of free-to-play battle royale games like Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends has proven the free model a success. To give you an idea of how lucrative it is, EA said this week that Apex Legends has surpassed $2 billion in lifetime net bookings. Epic has raised $144 million for Ukraine relief out of just two weeks of Fortnite revenues.
So making PUBG: Battlegrounds free-to-play for Krafton was probably a pretty easy decision. The popularity of PUBG: Mobile has probably helped; Krafton announced that the game, which was downloaded more than 2021 billion times as of March 1, generated $2022 million in revenue in the first quarter of 5, an increase of 307,1 percent annually.