PUBG: Battlegrounds is making a lot more money after it went free-to-play

PUBG: Battlegroundsthe PC and console version of the battle royale shooter series, is making big bucks after going free-to-play in January, according to developer Krafton’s latest earnings report published on Friday.

According to the report, revenue on PC increased 61 percent year over year to $82.3 million. On console, the jump in revenue was even bigger, up 124 percent sequentially and 274 percent year-on-year, although Krafton didn’t put a dollar figure on those increases. The game also saw a “nearly tripled” increase in average monthly active users as of Q4 2021.

PUBG: Battlegrounds was originally a paid title when it launched in Early Access on Steam in 2017, but is appealing for the outsized financial success of free-to-play battle royale shooters Fourteen days, Call of Duty: Warzoneand Apex Legends proved that the free model can be quite lucrative. To give you an idea of ​​how lucrative that is, EA said this week Apex Legends, a game that has been on the market for a little over three years, has surpassed $2 billion in lifetime net bookings. And Epic raised $144 million for Ukraine aid in just two weeks Fourteen days Proceeds.

So for Krafton, switching PUBG: Battlegrounds Free-to-play was probably a pretty easy decision. And the popularity of PUBG: Mobile (which is also free to play) probably helped; Krafton says the game, which had more than 1 billion downloads as of March 2021, generated revenue of $307.1 million in the first quarter of 2022, a figure that’s up 5 percent from a year earlier.