Legendary battle royale game PUBG has reached a new high of 670 000 users after changing its monetisation model.

PUBG: Battlegrounds, the veteran battle royale, is still a regular on Steam’s most played video games list, but a recent change in its monetisation model has seen the game’s numbers skyrocket. The game, formerly known as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, announced at the end of 2021 that it would be moving to a free-to-play model.

The game went free-to-play a few days ago, and it has attracted a massive number of players, with a peak of 670,000 in the last 24 hours, double the number of regular users in the previous month. Daniel Ahmad, a well-known analyst at Niko Partners, shared the numbers, although it seems that not all players are happy about the arrival of new combatants.

Players condemn the arrival of cheaters

The analyst also noted that there had been a thirteen-fold increase in negative reviews from game users. As Ahmad points out, the complaints indicate the presence of cheating players who have been encouraged by the change in the game’s model. Players who purchased the game at the time received a special PUBG commemorative pack that upgraded their account to Battlegrounds Plus, exclusive features, as well as various skins, a frying pan and a dog tag.

The massive influx of new PUBG: Battlegrounds users comes as the game’s creators, Krafton, parents of the excellent Subnautica, are preparing their new projects following the purchase of Unknown Worlds. The popular battle royale is available for free download on PlayStation and Xbox.

Source: Twitter

PUBG hit 670k peak concurrent players on Steam today, after going free to play.

This is double its usual concurrent user figure in the past month.

However, the game also received 13x the usual number of negative reviews from people that previously paid / annoyed by cheaters. https://t.co/kX1jmpjawu

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) January 12, 2022