Welcome back, this week not only do we have a major story focused on PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds, we also have some small stories. As there weren’t that many major games released this week, we have no games to cover.
PLAYER UNKNOWN BATTLEGROUNDS AND HOW IT GOT SO POPULAR:
Player Unknown Battlegrounds started off as a mod for Arma 2 DayZ: Battle Royale, made by Brendan Greene. I don’t think Brendan ever thought that his little mod for Arma 2 would ever become a full game with over 11 million copies sold, Steam’s most played game with about 396,605,335 hours. These hours equate to 16,525,223 days or about 45,275 years (as of 9/18/17). Some other statistics are that PUBG is the #1 game with the most concurrent players, with about 1,348,374 unknown players in the battleground, and it’s the #1 streaming game on Twitch. These are AMAZING stats, but that leaves the question, how? How did Brendan Greene turn a mod for a game into a game with all those mind boggling achievements? How did it get so popular? What’s next for Player Unknown? We will answer those questions and more soon, but first, let’s start off with who this man is. Brendan Greene first started off with making the “Battle Royale” mod for DayZ, which was a mod for a game called Arma 2. This mod was based on the Japanese movie “Battle Royale” People fell in love with the mod, but the next game, Arma 3, came out a couple months later. With no surprise, Brendan then made his mod for Arma 3, which was also a success. Next up for Player Unknown was “H1Z1 King of the Kill”, where he assisted Daybreak, the company who made the game, with the mechanics and feel for the game. To no one’s surprise, the game was also a big hit, scoring in with about +100,000 players. Brendan said that this version was more “simplified” and ” Kind of arcadey”. With all this success, it was a no brainier for Brendan to make his own game, PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds. This game had all of the best features from his mod for Arma 3 and H1Z1 King of the Kill. He said that PUBG is how he envisioned his game to be, without any of the other games mechanics to hold him back. My opinion is that the reason it is such a successful game is because he basically created what he’s wanted, without anything from the previous games holding him back. Not only has this game become popular for people to play, but it’s also become popular for people to watch on streaming websites such as Twitch and YouTube. Twitch has contributed to it’s success because of many people streaming it, spreading word of the game around. YouTube has helped because of many people posting their “highlights” or “crazy kills”. I have found myself watching a couple of these videos, along with some Twitch Streamers such as Dr.DisRespect. Brendan Green’s next steps are polishing the game up, and moving on to the sequel, which I don’t for a second doubt will be a success.
STORIES OF THE WEEK:
PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds Threatens Developer Over Similar Mode: Going along with our main focus this week, we have a PUBG story. This one centers around a game called “FortNite” and its developers releasing a game mode that is very similar to PUBG. The game mode in question is pretty much a complete rip off of PUBG. What is even worse is that this game mode will be put out for free, and you can play it even if you don’t own FortNite. A press release by the PUBG developers stated that “We’ve had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG’s development as they are the creators of UE4, the engine we licensed for the game… After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the game play for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known.” I think that while this is very wrong, it’s just one of many more copycats of PUBG to come.
Toys R Us Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy: (This story is a continuation of the story from my first blog post, click here to see more information on the story). Sadly, Toys R Us has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. They will take some time to restructure their $5 billion dollars in debt, and hopefully make it out of this so more generations of kids can enjoy what Toys R Us has to offer.
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NBA 2K 18 Micro-transaction Drama: If you think that $60 is all you’re going to pay for NBA 2K 18, you have another thing coming. As more and more people are buying and playing this game, more and more people are realizing that most of the game requires you to either grind the game, or use real money to buy stuff in game, such as level up your character, get a haircut, buy clothes, but shoes. While you start off with 6,000 currency, that goes away quickly, leaving you to grind or spend real money to get that nice hair cut you want for your character. Fun fact, one hair cut costs about 1,500 currency, and that’s just the price on something not even contributing to how good your player is. I think that this is just another of the many bad things about this years NBA, and that this is another example of 2K trying to rip as many people as they can.
I hope you guys enjoyed my huge story on PUBG, it took it little while to get it all together, but overall I am pretty happy about it. As always, thanks for reading, and until next time, game on! (Try counting how many times I said PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds or PUBG in this article, I’m sure it’s a lot!)
Link Dump:
Player Unknown Battlegrounds (In order): http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/04/18/why-over-1-million-people-are-playing-playerunknowns-battlegrounds http://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/pubg-is-steams-most-played-game-w504017 https://www.twitch.tv/drdisrespectlive
PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds Threaten: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playerunknowns-battlegrounds-dev-threatens-epic-ov/1100-6453530/
ToysRUs Bankruptcy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/19/toys-r-u-s-files-for-bankruptcy/?utm_term=.c5e949a1802e
NBA 2K 18 Micro transactions: https://kotaku.com/nba-2k18-is-riddled-with-microtransactions-1818554307
NBA 2K18 and NBA Live 18: (I have decided to group these two games together because I view them as the same game.) Did you know that there were two different versions of these types of games? Well, I didn’t know either! While they look like the same game, they are actually made by two different companies, 2K and EA Sports. NBA 2K18 is more focused on “MyCareer”, which is a mode where the player gets to make their own basketball player, and “competes” are games on and off the court. NBA Live 18 also has a more focused story mode called “The One” where the player gets to play in their own story and possibly make it to the big leagues but is more focused on the multiplayer aspect. I was able to play the multiplayer beta for NBA Live 18, and while I thought it was fun playing with my friends, yelling at them to pass the ball over to me (just like in real life), I don’t think that it was a game that I could play for long term.For me, these games serve no interest to me, as I don’t play any sports games. My opinion is that while there may be a few changes from game to game, it’s pretty much the same game getting re-released over and over again. For Example, while there were a few changes to NBA Live 18 by adding the players from the Women’s National Basketball Association, I don’t believe that they had to make a whole new game just to put that in, they could have just put it in as an update or as a DLC. I can understand why they make these games every year, as they are always $60, but eventually, people are going to stop paying for the same game over and over again. It also doesn’t help that these reviewer sites keep giving these games high scores. Overall, not a big fan.
Rayman Legends Definitive Edition: Rayman, what an interesting title. Rayman Legends follows the plot from the previous games (which is very extensive) and has you saving 10 princesses. I have played this game once before on the Wii U, and I didn’t really play it that much, but on the Switch that’s a whole different story. When the demo came out, I fell in love with the game. It reminded me so much of when I used to play Mario on the Wii with my mom. I loved the art style and humor in the game and especially loved the music level. All except one thing, the “Murphy’s touch” level. As the name suggests, the player uses the Switch’s many features to complete different puzzles, such as moving the console in a certain direction or tapping on a lever to open a secret pathway. I found that moving the switch around was sometimes a little disorientating and would mess up the game. But overall, I am excited to play the game and for more Rayman games to come out.
Knack 2: While I have yet to play the original Knack, I have heard many people criticizing the original Knack for its bad story and rinse and repeat content. It’s even turned into a meme from one of my favorite YouTubers VideoGameDunkey. I downloaded the demo the other day, which had about 20 minutes of content, and actually had some fun. I thought that the mechanic of switching in between big Knack and small Knack to fight bad guys and go through puzzles was very intriguing. Something that I didn’t like though was that it was a little too easy, but that might be because that it’s a demo and it’s marketed towards kids. So because of that, while I will not be picking up Knack 2 immediately, I will look into the game to see if it will be worth my time.
Destiny 2: You could say that the Original Destiny got me into video games back when it first released in late 2014. Up until then, the only thing that I mostly played was Minecraft and some games on the Wii, but Destiny was what really got me into gaming. I would usually play with one of my friends that I met online, and had a ton of fun. When I eventually got the PlayStation 4, Destiny was one of the first games that I got for it. Unlike before though, I played less and less, up until the point that it was out of my mind. I feel as if the original Destiny was meant for you to play it with friends, which I had none of at the time. I am cautious but yet excited for the new Destiny as I now have more friends to play it with. But I am cautious because I don’t want to waste my money on all the DLC that they make like how I did on the first one game.
Matt's Got Game 