PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG, was released in July 2016 to large commercial success and overall positive critical ratings. But its player base heavily dropped after the excitement of the game coming out wore off, going from over 3 million players to eventually drop to less than 500,000.
A mobile version was also created, called PUBG Mobile, which had the same issue of a rapidly dropping player base after a lot of hype just after the game’s release. However, while the casual player base dropped heavily, opportunities for professional play thrived. Some tournaments had prize pools of over $200,000.