PUBG: Battlegrounds, the console and PC version of the Battle Royale series, is making a lot of money after switching to free-to-play in January, as revealed by developer Krafton's latest earnings report.
According to the report, PC sales rose 61% annually to $82.3 million. The jump in cross-platform sales was even greater, increasing 124% from the previous quarter and 274% annually. This is despite the fact that Crafton did not put a dollar number behind the increases.
The game also saw a nearly threefold increase in average monthly active users from the fourth quarter of 2021.
- PUBG: Battlegrounds was originally a paid game when it launched on Steam in Early Access in 2017.
- But the huge financial success of free Battle Royale games like Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends has proven that the free model can be very profitable.
- To give you an idea of how profitable it is, EA said this week that Apex Legends, a game released just over three years ago, has crossed $2 billion in net profit.
Meanwhile, Epic Games raised about $144 million for Ukraine relief in just two weeks from Fortnite revenue. The game raised $36 million in its first day alone.
As a result, those numbers likely prompted Crafton to move PUBG: Battlegrounds to free-to-play.
Crafton's bet on PUBG pays off big
Perhaps the popularity of PUBG: Mobile (Free to Play) helped the company make such a decision. The game accounted for 75% of Crafton's revenue for the first quarter.
Crafton says that PUBG: Mobile, which has been downloaded more than 1 billion times as of March 2021, generated $307.1 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2022, a number up 5% annually.
The gaming company reported revenue of $407 million, up 13.5% annually. The report indicated that net profit for the quarter was $190 million, an increase of 26%.
Crafton attributed part of its quarterly growth to the performance of PUBG: Battlegrounds after it became free to play on PC and console in January. "The number of paying users has more than doubled, which contributes significantly to boosting quarterly sales," she said.