We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

Esports pros are ditching practice for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

When is a game too popular? This is a question PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds may soon answer as it skyrockets to ever more players and fame. It’s even becoming problematic for those that spend all day, every day supposedly practicing other games.

Our PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds guide will help you get into the game if you’re just starting out.

“I was at the Twitch Dreamhack party,” Brendan Greene remembers, creator and known counterpart to PlayerUnknown. “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’.”

It’s not just the famously loose western teams either. “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!’”

A quick glance at Twitch on any given day will tell you just how many CS:GO pros, particularly those based in North America, are making their streaming dollar through Battlegrounds. Greene says it’s “not to the detriment of their career or team, though.”

We’ve just about avoided a similar problem in the office, though the lunchtime Overwatch sessions aren’t getting any shorter. An unnamed developer has also had to ban Battlegrounds as people wouldn’t stop playing after lunch was over, leading to lost work hours. Greene jokes that maybe it’s time to “set up some rehab clinics.”