In e-sports are multiplayer games with a developed competitive element. One of the basic requirements for cybersport discipline is the predominance of the element of mastery over the element of chance.
Another basic requirement for e-sports is the presence of balance and equal opportunities for all players. If the developers took into account these aspects when creating the next cybersport masterpiece, they can safely say: our game can claim the title of a competitive discipline.
Examples of shot cybersport games a bit. Among the shooters – this is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Quake . In the strategies for many years, StarCraft dominated , until it became useless, except the Koreans. There are also games for those who love a calm and measured gameplay.
For such in eSports there is a Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft . In the genre MOBA traditionally leaders are Dota 2 and League of Legends . As for FIFA, World of Tanks and Heroes of the Storm , then they are held only a small number of championships.
Network shooter Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is not like any of the above projects. There are no characters with their unique abilities, and the entire action of the game takes place on one large map.
Inspired by the success of the DayZ modification for Arma 2, the developer Brendan Green has created a new genre.
Replacing zombies with people, but leaving the gathering of resources for which players would have to fight each other on a vast map, Brendan improved what worked so well, but was not brought to mind in DayZ.
Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds – a sandbox game about survival in open terrain – appeared on Steam as part of the early access program in March 2017. Unlike DayZ.
Where players appeared in a random place and had to spend a lot of time to get to a certain place, in PUBG the player himself can decide in which area to land. With a good knowledge of the map and a pre-selected tactic – this is a definite plus.
The task of all players on the island is to collect as quickly as possible the greatest amount of useful resources (weapons, first-aid kits, sights) and eliminate all other players.
Sit out in the bushes game does not allow: after a while the zone narrows and we have to walk or transport to move to a safe place. Players outside the zone quickly lose their health and eventually die.
How the game gained popularity
Thanks to the large-scale advertising campaign Bluehole Studio on Twitch.tv, the game became popular first among streamers, and then among ordinary players.
All popular surveyors and tape drives got access to PUBG before the rest. Moreover, the developers allowed them to distribute keys among viewers.
Streamers created a stir, helped to fix a lot of mistakes at the start of the game and podsobili advice. After the release of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds on Steam, Brendan Green and Bluehole earned $ 11 million in just three days. A week later the audience of the game was 90,000 active players.
The growth of players does not stop even now. According to the developers, PUBG is quite able to achieve the League of Legends in terms of the number of active players. And there are more than 100 million of them in the League of Legends !
How did I get to eSports
Brendan Green, while creating the Battle Royale for Arma 2, dreamed that someday his games gained popularity in e-sports:
E-sports is what I dreamed of. I always thought that it was a spectacular sport. These are our first steps in this direction.
We are trying to find the right format for this, because before us no one developed eSports in the genre of Battle Royale.
We must find ways to do everything at the highest level, and therefore we work with ESL and other organizations, and find out what they think.
Prior to the cyber-sporting popularity of Dota 2 and the League of Legends, the game is still growing and growing, but the first steps have already been taken.
For the first time Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds announced itself in e-sports in May 2017.
Bluehole and Brendan Green announced a charity championship, following which they managed to raise more than $ 120 thousand donations for sick children.
In the pubg esports, 128 streamers took part. Green called all that happened “childish steps”:
This is for us “children’s steps.” But we can not just stand up and say: Everything, we are in e-sports, everything is ready. The game should be competitive, it should be free, and it should work. We are not going to fully enter e-sports until the game comes out of early access, and even then we will act slowly.
The developers have repeatedly noted that for the popularization of the game in e-sports they need professional players. And the cybersport organizations seemed to hear them.
Their units for Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds were opened by such well-known e-sports teams as Team SoloMid, Cloud 9, Team Liquid, Luminosity Gaming and M19.
And at the end of August at the GamesCom 2017, the first truly big tournament on PUBG – GamesCom Invitational 2017 was held with a prize fund of $ 350 thousand.
Problems that have arisen on GamesCom
But if you abstract from the exalted emotions and go down to Earth, it turns out that GamesCom PUBG Invitational 2017 because of the inexperience of the organizers and the imperfection of the tournament rules was far from perfect in terms of organizing the pubg tournament.
On the one hand it was the first big tournament on this game and it was almost impossible to do without technical problems. But on the other hand, what prevented the organizers from better preparing and understanding the topic?
Thus, at the exit we got the winner, who spent most of the time outside the safety zone. Korean player Evermore from the team 4entro survived outside the zone with the help of first-aid kits and power engineers.
While the rest of the players were killing each other, the Korean player was watching from the side. Watching his game was uninteresting, but his tactics proved to be the most effective.
And only later in the Grand Finals in the confrontation between the teams Luminosity Gaming and T3 Gaming, one of the players on the computer started updating Windows 10. The player could not continue the match, and was killed by the enemy.
But this curiosity is not over. In the team battles, another incident occurred. Following the results of the matches, Turkish cyber-sportsmen took the second place and already began to celebrate as the organizers changed their places with Cloud 9.
When counting tie-breaks, it turned out that Cloud 9 is in the black. Fans took this fact disapproving buzz. The next day the organizers explained the structure of the rating system, but the sediment remained.
Despite all these situations, there was no thought of going through the organizers with a strong word. Everyone understood that this was the first championship. The format of the tournament turned out to be experimental, so it was silly to talk about pros and cons.
What the game attracts
Low entry threshold: The game is simple compared to other disciplines. The principle is this: on the map are scattered weapons, first-aid kits and other essential resources that we need to win.
Throughout the game, we are constantly searching for these things, and when meeting with the enemy – shoot, kill him and move on. To understand what is happening on the screen, the viewer is 10-15 minutes.
Absence of problems with balance: In other disciplines, developers constantly have to monitor the balance. In PUBG, the balance as such is not needed. If any weapon will stand out against the background of others – Bluehole will quickly fix it.
Unpredictability: In pubg esports ready you can not be confident in your abilities. The slightest relaxation and you’re a corpse.
You can not guess where the zone will go and, thus, not be in time to reach it.
And if you move loudly (as an option, on a motorcycle or a car, – Ed. Ed.) – there is a big chance to get into a mess.
Ambush here is a frequent phenomenon, if you play with your friends.
A variety of tactics and situations: Knowledge of the card is the key to survival. The player must clearly understand where to go, how to go and why.
Nobody forbids to get involved in every potential clash or sit in the house and hand out to the right and left, but in that case it will be problematic to survive.
In fact, this game is won not only by the most accurate, but also the quietest player on the map. And yes, do not forget to close the doors in those houses where you already were.
Equal terms for all players: It is enough to purchase Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds for $ 30 and enjoy the game on an equal footing with all conditions.
Do not buy the individual things that pump you. You do not need to buy any boosts to take advantage. In this game, all this is out of the question.
And than repels
Optimization and overstated system requirements: It’s no secret that the optimization of PUBG is lame on both legs. At the start of the game, we had to endure unreal lags and drop FPS even on powerful computers.
It’s enough to read reviews about the game: everything is fine, but the lags and errors of early access spoil the overall impression of PUBG.
The developers are trying to fix the situation with the help of released patches, but until the stable operation of the game is still far.
The physics of machines: In Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds it is not recommended to rush on the car at high speed, as the physics of vehicles in the game raises big questions.
You can easily die from scratch, sitting at the wheel of a motorcycle or car. It is enough to drive on some small stone, so that your vehicle is turned over.
High ping: Many Russian players complain about high ping. It is logical, because servers in Russia and the CIS are not expected.
The least luck was with players from Siberia and the Far East. They have an average ping ranging from 150 to 200. You can play with such a ping, but it’s very uncomfortable.
Are there any chances to gain a foothold in eSports?
At the beginning of our material, we did not say about one important thing.
Even if the game does not fit all of the above criteria of cybersport, but is in the top Steam, then be sure, after a while, it will appear in e-sports. What’s the point of promoting e-games that are not popular?
In this there is no reason. In pubg online in such a short time, a huge player base was formed.
It is watched, played by some cyber sportsmen from other disciplines, it even hinders the ability to train normally, because it is impossible to break away from PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Brendan Green recalls that when he was at the Twitch Dreamhack party, the coaches of the cybersport teams said that they almost had to forcibly pull their players from PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
By the way, such insane fanaticism is seen not only among European players.
For example, players of the Korean team SK Telecom T1 spent so much time in pubg game, which showed inexpressive results during the Korean tournaments in the League of Legends.
