PUBG’s newest piece of content/revenue earner, the “Event Pass,” hasn’t been receiving a very warm reception. It’s not hard to see the logic behind PUBG Corp.’s decision to launch such a feature. Like Fortnite’s “Battle Pass” they obviously wanted a progression system that would simultaneously keep their players busy as well as earn them a little extra money. Unfortunately, PUBG Corp. failed to note a glaring difference between the two games: Fortnite is free-to-play and PUBG isn’t. In short, PUBG Corp. is charging players who’ve already bought the game even more money to be able to access the additional content.
While we’re all aware of DLC’s for paid games, PUBG Corp.’s situation is also a bit different than most. Take Street Fighter V’s “Season Pass” for example. SF5 is a paid game, and their Season Pass grants you access to additional characters and costumes. More or less the same concept, and yet, you don’t have mobs of angry SF5 players complaining on Steam about their DLCs. Why? Because the game actually works.
PUBG has been full of performance issues, bugs, and FPS drops for a very long period of time. When it gets to the point that the devs have to write an official statement describing how they’re “falling short” in their ability to craft a game that runs as intended, you know it’s bad. And then they go ahead and slap an additional feature that costs $9.99 on top of this bug pile? It’s obvious why the community would be up in arms. Just take a look at the huge number of negative Steam reviews it’s received since the update.
In response to the mass complaints, PUBG Corp. has yet again released another statement on Steam addressing the issues. In it, they responded to some of the complaints regarding the badly tuned quests included in the Event Pass by announcing that some of the numbers on these quests would be adjusted. Strangely, that seemed to be the only real topic covered in the letter.
Given the huge number of bugs still not fixed, and the rampant cheating that continues to persist even after their 100,000 player ban-wave, you’ve got to wonder who in their right mind would continue to support this game in its current state. It would be one thing if the game was free-to-play, but considering you have to pay for this less than stellar experience, I find it very hard to understand people who are willing to put down the money at this point to play.
If PUBG Corp. fails to get their act together, I’m genuinely curious if gamers will continue to play. I’d like to believe that with the huge number of alternative battle royale style games, it wouldn’t be difficult to migrate to a different one. Then again, PUBG did just hit a 400 million player milestone so I’m getting a bit of a mixed message here from the gaming community. Ultimately, I guess only time will tell if PUBG Corp. is capable of delivering a smooth gameplay experience and whether or not people decide to stay if they don’t.
