Wednesday, October 4th 2017
PUBG Review-bombed Due to In-game Ads on Steam
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is a game that has been in the limelight mainly for the unexpected success it achieved in the Steam platform, passing unexpected milestones in the sales department (around 10 million copies sold) and in maximum concurrent players (1,645,460). However, the game has also seen its fair share of problems due to technical or balancing reasons. If there is one circumstance of public outcry that could have been avoided, though, it's the latest: Chinese players have review-bombed PUBG due to the addition of in-game ads. On which we had a more in-depth editorial sometime ago, if you want to take a look.
Review bombing isn't new, and started even before the latest high-profile event of the sort, around Campo Santo's Firewatch. The in-game ads are only present in loading screens, and point towards a third-party VPN service, which promises better internet connections to thousands of Chinese players when connecting to non-asian servers. For now, the ads seem to be limited to the Chinese crowd; there's a chance these ads could expand to other, non-China based players, although that is looking increasingly likely, considering the overall response from the affected portion of PUBG's player-base - the game now counts with more than 26 thousand negative reviews, with the vast majority of those hitting the game since September 29th (not exclusively due to the in-game ads, but those are the most pervasive argument in the reviews.)
Sources:
Steam, TechSpot
Review bombing isn't new, and started even before the latest high-profile event of the sort, around Campo Santo's Firewatch. The in-game ads are only present in loading screens, and point towards a third-party VPN service, which promises better internet connections to thousands of Chinese players when connecting to non-asian servers. For now, the ads seem to be limited to the Chinese crowd; there's a chance these ads could expand to other, non-China based players, although that is looking increasingly likely, considering the overall response from the affected portion of PUBG's player-base - the game now counts with more than 26 thousand negative reviews, with the vast majority of those hitting the game since September 29th (not exclusively due to the in-game ads, but those are the most pervasive argument in the reviews.)
44 Comments on PUBG Review-bombed Due to In-game Ads on Steam
This is doing miracles on mobile devices. I never understood why the PC/consoles are not following the trend??
NB: It's rhetorical, it doesn't.
Edit
Also in game ads... a thing I've seen only in mobile "free to play" cashgrabs...
Edit2
also it's $30
And not, it's $25 where I am.
Also...... The game runs like thick turd on a steep gradient, and uses 1 entire CPU thread for everything, after they specifically released a patch to "support 6+ cores". It's great. I know its early access... but how about making the game WORK properly before adding in micro-transactions and BS ads.
Come on, now. Come on.
How I see this is: "lets make it early access! then $ starts to flow in!" Then suddenly "why bother we are already making cash so whatever throw in some adds and sh!t."
Disclaimer - I do play and enjoy this game. I also simultaneously think its optimization and mechanics are BS. Hows some real jump mechanics there. Thanks that one map is great though. Pity about the PS1 textures though.
and... /rant
"what? a man marrying a man? what madness is this, whats next? a man marrying a chicken or a table? thats just crazy so lets so no to gay marriage"
People are free to dislike what they want, but dont dislike something because you only see what bad stuff MIGHT come.
Dislike it when that bad stuff is here and voice concern about that in forums etc.
Over here, i've experienced a "short" 30 minute commercial break in a TV movie (not cable channel). Movies on TV usually have 3 to 4 commercial breaks (depending on duration of the movie) and that's OK: it becomes a serious problem IMO when the break is as long if not longer then the movie part they showed. It's the reason i like cable TV more: commercial breaks last around 5 to 6 minutes @ most and often don't last 3 minutes.It only takes a precedence: once "accepted" in one game, it then becomes accepted for every game.
they are like a cancer that keeps spreading.. i know they help pay for things but at the same time they are f-cking annoying and getting more so..
i have also recently read they dont actually work.. he he..
trog
I hate you, but I love you.
If it has adds, the client should be free.
If it has microtransactions, if should not have adds and preferably the client should still be free (see Path of Exile).
If it requires a monthly subscription, the client should also be free.
If you want to sell it for an upfront fee, it should not have either ads or microtransactions.
This is how games should be marketed if makers had any confidence in them. Otherwise, it's just milking users for as much as possible. And I won't touch it.
So is the game (too) expensive for its content? YES. Realistically the price/content is lower than what you get in a Call of Duty map pack which is among the worst DLC packages in the world in terms of value. Compare this to for example: Divinity Original Sin 2...
Honestly the justification of ingame ads in a paid game, I get all cringy about that instantly. Mobile gaming is not comparable to console- or PC gaming. Evident by the lack of straight ports between these platforms, and the extreme difference in complexity. Different worlds, different business models.