PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds breaks 1.5 million concurrent users

In early August, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds surpassed 500,000 concurrent players on Steam, which led me to wonder if long-time chart champ Dota 2 might be facing an actual threat to its position at the top of the heap. Not long after, the answer came back a resounding "yes," as PUBG very convincingly seized the crown, and then less than a week later stomped out Dota 2's all-time record of 1.29 million players.

In case you were wondering, it's not slowing down. PUBG broke 1.4 million concurrents on September 22, and then hit a new all-time peak of 1,523,179 concurrent players one day later, according to Steam Charts. It's also still selling like gangbusters: SteamSpy estimates that it's moved another two million copies, give or take, since it broke the ten million sales mark on September 5.

And consider this: Around the same time that PUBG passed 500,000 concurrents, Valve announced that Steam was rocking about 14 million concurrent users every day, a number that recently pushed past 15 million. PUBG at one point accounted for ten percent of that figure all by itself.

Developer Bluehole recently became embroiled in a beef with Epic Games over Epic's release of a PUBG-like Battle Royale mode for its base-building shooter Fortnite. The studio clarified over the weekend that its concern isn't with the mode itself, but with the way Epic used the PUBG name to promote the game, which it believes could lead to confusion: "There were players like, 'Oh it's cool, now we get to play PUBG in Fortnite'," marketing and events manager Sammie Kang said. For right now, at least, I'd say it doesn't look like they have too much to worry about.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.