eSports
Charlie Fripp, Kwese ESPN 7y

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds causing headache for esports teams

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The massively popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds isn't an esport (yet), but that doesn't mean that it is not causing problems in the industry.

Just in case you didn't know, Battlegrounds was spun into a standalone Early Access game from what used to be an Arma 3 mod called Battle Royal.

Players battle others in an ever-shrinking map until one player or team is left. But if the game isn't an esport, how can it be disrupting the esports industry?

Well, professional esports gamers are playing it so much that they aren't practicing for their competitive games.

PlayerUnknown's Brendan Greene said that he learnt of this development while at Dreamhack last week.

"I was at the Twitch Dreamhack party. I had the coaches of some big esport teams telling me that 'we have to stop our players from playing your games because they're not practising for tournaments'," he explained to PC Games N.

"The SK Telecom League team in Korea were playing so much of our game that they did poorly in the competition in Korea, and people were on the boards blaming our game. 'They're just streaming [Battlegrounds] all the time. Tell them to stop and practice League!'" he concluded.

It seems that there really can be something like a too popular game. Greene even joked that maybe the professional teams should "set up some rehab clinics."

Speaking of Battlegrounds not being an esport yet, in May this year Greene said that there is still a lot that needs to be done in order to make it happen - and its just not a priority right now.

"We really truly believe that for any esport to form around Battle Royale, the game, number one, has to be stable, it has to be competitive and we have so much research and work to do to get it to that state," he told eSports Pro.com

The development team would like to bring the game out of Early Access first, but Bluehole Studios have already employed Chris 'Panky' Pankhurst as the esports product manager.

"It's not to start doing esports straightaway but more for him to start planning, start figuring out what we actually need from the game for it to be a successful esport. We're not jumping headlong into esports. We really want to make sure that we've got a great platform first and make sure we do everything in small steps so we're not rushing into it," Greene explained.

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