An Audience With…
Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds creator Brendan Greene on his influence and blissful ignorance
What a year it’s been for Brendan Greene, aka Playerunknown, the man and modder behind Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. An Early Access release last March saw the battle royale title – originally a mod for survival shooter DayZ, itself a popular mod of Arma 2 – become an instant smash hit, selling over 26 million copies and smashing Steam’s record with an astonishing 3.14 million concurrent users. 3, A full release in December pushed its sales to over 40 million, and PUBG seemed nigh-on untouchable.
But Greene’s big idea had set a chain reaction in motion. Suddenly, everyone was out to grab a slice of the PUBG pie – not least flagging survival title Fortnite, which turned around a battle-royale mode in record time and has somewhat gazumped PUBG of late. The genre that Greene’s game defined is now a phenomenon, with some of the biggest publishers in the world rumoured to be gearing up for battle-royale announcements for their games at this year’s E3. Almost exactly one year on from PUBG’s early access release, we caught up with Greene at EGX Rezzed to discuss the complex emotions of seeing your own mod be modded, how to stay true to a vision by rejecting influence, and how on earth you follow up a worldwide phenomenon.
It’s been quite the year for you. Are you still getting over it?
It still hasn’t really sunk in, because it’s been so mad. I’ve seen pretty much every city in the world at this stage. It’s been crazy, having to do the press thing, and getting to go to conventions, and meet so many different fans. It’s been wonderful, I’ve really enjoyed it.
Doing “the press thing” – are you used to that yet?
Yeah, I’m getting used to being a public figure. It’s a little strange: I have half a million followers on Twitter, which is insane. I never thought I’d ever reach this level of fame, I guess, but I try to keep my feet on the ground.
The extent of it must be surreal, but you did have a sense that PUBG was going to be big, right?
Well, no. I mean, when I was first interviewed by Bluehole to join the company as creative director, they asked me, “How many copies do you think we’ll sell?” And I had confidence in my own game, and I was thinking a million, month one. I’d seen streamers like Lirik and Break really enjoy the Arma 3 mod, so I knew there was something there. And with the success of H1Z1, I knew if I put this game mode into a game that people could easily play, instead of having to mod it onto a game, I thought it would be popular.
So I was a little arrogant saying a million month one – but we did a million in 16 days, I think, which was insane to me. Now we’ve got 40 million plus across all platforms. Which is, just, the numbers are too big, you know?
It’s become quite personal, really, because your name is on the game – not many developers do that. How conscious a decision was that?
Originally, it was Playerunknown’s Battle Royale in Arma and I called it Playerunknown’s Battle Royale simply just to skirt any copyright problems. Even though the Battle Royale movie was an influence, the game mode wasn’t at all like what was in the movie. But I put Playerunknown’s Battle Royale just because it would get around the copyright thing. And it’s the same with Battlegrounds – I liked the name, because we wanted to create these worlds that we have battles in, right? Because there are a few other uses of it out there, like Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds, it just alleviates any copyright restrictions so we could trademark the name Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. And it’s given us PUBG, so it’s a wonderful moniker.
Do you ever regret putting your name on it?
No. I mean, I get a lot of wonderful feedback, and a lot of feedback that’s not so nice – but it comes with the job, you know? I think it doesn’t matter what we called it, the feedback would have been the same. I don’t mind [the recognition]. I love going to conventions, I love meeting fans. I meet people who are quite literally shaking when they come up to me. And it’s like, I’m only me, I don’t bite. But it means so much to them.
You’ve been a software engineer, a DJ, a photographer, a modder, and now you’re a rock star. But do you feel like a game developer yet?
As a hardcore developer, no, I am not a game developer. As a creative director, I feel I’ve slotted into that role quite well. I feel I understand how to work with teams, and how to deliver and enact a vision. So yeah, I feel like I am a game developer now. I’m not a programmer by any means, and I can’t really get my hands that dirty. I’ve worked a lot over the past year, and I still don’t think I’m up there with the best creative directors out there, but I definitely feel like I am now sort of part of the industry.
Do you have any people you look up to in terms of your career?
Well, this is the problem! I was never a big gamer: I played games occasionally. I was a photographer and a DJ, so that’s what I kind of did. At weekends I was DJing, or doing gigs, or whatever, so I didn’t get a lot of time to play games. I never really paid attention to the industry.
I met Tim Schafer at PAX East with Danny O’Dwyer. And Danny was like, “Tim! How are you? Lovely to meet you,” and I was walking away going, “Who the hell is Tim Schafer?” Danny was like, “You know, Monkey Island.” And I was like, “Ah! I remember that.” And I met Tim again at the BAFTAs, and I told him this, and he was like, “Oh my God, I hate you!” So yeah, I never really knew any people in the industry. I don’t know if I have heroes, or idols.
Do you think that lack of knowledge and expectation has benefitted you in any way?
I think so. I mean, definitely from an engine point of view. I don’t know the tech intimately, and that allows me to dream a little bigger. With game design, it’s the same – I’m not burdened by the rules of game design that many other people have learnt, and as a result, Battlegrounds was born out of that. The battle royale game mode was born out of my lack of game design – and it being a tough game. I think our win percentage is something like 20 per cent. With most games, it has to be 60 per cent: that’s the give, and that’s what you should be doing. No, I want to punish players, make them feel sad, and angry, and salty. And they like it. Players like a game that’s hard, they like challenge. If a game is too easy, it gets boring. And with Battlegrounds, because it’s against other people, it’s the hardest game of all.
Which part of the job do you enjoy more? The rock star part, or the dev part?
There are times that I wish I could just put my head down, and work closer to the team. But it’s important that I do the press stuff: it is my name on the game, so I have to do the tour. And that’s okay. I don’t mind the travelling – I don’t get to see much, apart from the inside of conventions, which all kind of blur into one. There are times I wish I had more time to spend with the team, because I love working with them, I love sitting down and talking about things. But it’s a credit to the team that I don’t need to do that all that often. Those early days, we really hammered out what we want to do, and what we want for the game. Now they can handle everything, and I’m so proud of that.
Has it affected you and your life more than you anticipated it would?
I was not ready for it. I thought a million month one, but then I thought maybe we would sell five million copies. As I said, we passed 20 million, then 40 million, and it’s still selling. I did a keynote at SXSW, I spoke at GDC, I opened PAX – I never expected this. And I still feel a little like, when I’m telling my story, ‘Why do people want to listen to this?’ To me, it’s not that interesting – but people want to hear it.
I’ve had a lot of time to reflect, and if you look at the top four [multiplayer] games in the last 10 to 15 years – like Counter-Strike, Dota, DayZ, Battlegrounds – they all came from mods. These were not triple-A companies coming up with an idea for a game: this was a modder going, “This is a game I want to play,” and other people enjoying it. And I think it’s a testament to the fact that modding is a really interesting way to get into game development, and to try your ideas, because you never know what might happen.
You’ve set off a chain reaction within the industry.
This is it. There was a massive explosion of MOBAs way back when MOBAs first started, and we’re seeing the same now. There’s probably 20 new battle royales coming out this year. I just hope that there are interesting spins. You know, Cliff Bleszinski just had Radical Heights come out and that looks like a barrel of fun, an ’80s-themed battle royale with silly things and BMX tricks and stuff – it looks fun, right? And that’s what I like to see.
You’re a modder whose mod is being modded. People are kind of eating your lunch. How complicated are the emotions behind that?
When it comes to new battle royales coming out, and mods of mods, and spinoffs of spinoffs – I want new and interesting battle royales to come out. It’s not that they have to break the mould, but that they expand the genre, and really try to improve or change the game mode. I think if it’s just all carbon copies down the line, it just gets boring, you know? I want this genre to grow. I encourage everyone that’s reading this to look into the Arma modding community, because it’s insane the amount of content that’s there, and the support they give you.
For me, it was that I wanted to make a game that I wanted to play. CS:GO is the same: they made a game mode they wanted to play using the Half-Life engine. It’s the same with Dota: [Kyle Sommer] made a game mode he wanted to play. I think that’s the key difference between modding and triple-A. Triple-A is sometimes driven by feedback from various sources – whereas modding, it’s me and a dream. That’s what I want to do. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, I’m doing this, and if it works out, fantastic. If it doesn’t, well, I’ve lost nothing.
Do you pay much attention to other battle-royale games, or think about iterating on any of their ideas?
Not really. We have a pretty good idea of what we want from the game. We have internal teams that look at innovating a little bit more, making new game modes and stuff. We’re looking at it like, “This is our realistic feel.” Whereas we released emotes a while ago, and people were saying, “Oh, you’re just copying Fortnite,” – but no, we’re not. We did motion capture for the emotes last year in Prague after launch. We wanted to put non-verbal communication in because some people don’t have
microphones. And that was our plan – but you’re always going to get these comparisons like, “Oh, you’re reacting to this,” but most of the stuff we come up with we think of internally. While we do look at the games and play other games, we really want to try to keep our vision of a battle-royale game pure.
Is that purity now the selling point of PUBG?
We get asked a lot, “What makes your battle royale stand out, and different?” and it’s like, nothing! I had a good idea in Arma 3, and we really didn’t want to change it too much, because adding useless things and gimmicks to make your game different is often not the best course of action. There’s no point in throwing stuff at it just to make it different. I don’t get that. But I’m sure we’ll see that – I’m sure that there are marketing departments that will tell them, “No, add this, add that.” But we’re focused on our game, and we try to keep blinkers on as much as we can. I don’t want to be too influenced by what other games are doing.
Does it help keep you sane?
Well, this is it. At SXSW, someone asked, “What are you doing to combat X?” And I said, “Why do we need to combat X?” This idea that, ‘Your game’s going to die’, or ‘This is going to kill your game’ – I don’t get that. We’re all devs, we all love making games, we all have the privilege of doing this for a living. When we released, they were saying, “Oh, you’re going to kill H1”. I’m friends with the H1 devs. Why would I want to kill not only something I helped create, but a game made by friends of mine? It’s the same with all these other games. Why do I want them to die? Can’t we all co-exist?
But a new game is announced, and some of the first comments are like, “This game will fail because of this, this and this” – it’s just like, let’s give games a chance. Let’s not immediately want something to fail because we don’t like the idea, or we think this idea’s been done before. Let’s see them maybe do it differently.
So what’s the next different thing for PUBG?
This year, we want to start really investing in esports, and really try to build the global team, which we’re doing – we’re adding people in Santa Monica, in Amsterdam, in Korea. We’re up to about 300 now across all regions, maybe a bit more. We really want to invest in setting up tools, and getting the spectator system and the platform to a state where this can be a really successful esport, or people can have the confidence that they can go, “Yes, I can use PUBG as a platform”. That’s what we really want. And it takes time. Other games have taken three years or so to be considered an esport: it doesn’t happen overnight. You see it more and more where people are snapping their fingers and expecting things to be done, and it just doesn’t happen like that. Especially this – no one has done battle-royale esports before. We’re still trying to figure out the best format for it.
Part of what makes PUBG so compelling is that idea of one person against many. Why are you so passionate about it as an esport?
I love esports, I love watching CS:GO, but it was always two teams of five on stage, and for me, there’s not enough spectacle there. I want to put 100 people into the arena, and I want the first person, or the first team [eliminated] to stand up and walk off. It’s this idea of real spectacle, of a whole stadium cheering 100 people on. That’s what my dream was way back in DayZ battle royale. It’s very easy to watch as a spectator sport: it’s just a man, or woman, with a gun.
But there is so much to keep track of.
Yeah, but look at a game of golf. There’s maybe 50 people on the course, but they still manage to cover it, and it’s a good spectator sport. So we want to look at doing the same thing. We have to look at spectating differently. It can’t be like CS:GO, or Dota, where you’re covering action all the time. But we have to look at how to spectate a battle royale well, and how to tell everyone’s story. We’re trying to learn, and figure out the best systems for making it fair for the players, but also making it fair for the viewers so they can feel involved. These things take time, but working with organisations like PGL and StarLadder has been great.
“I’M NOT BURDENED BY THE RULES OF GAME DESIGN, AND AS A RESULT, BATTLEGROUNDS WAS BORN OUT OF THAT”
Philosophically, esports seems almost counter to your punk-rock modder roots, where you’d make the game you want and not care what anyone thinks. Esports is a big, glittery, commercialised business now. So what’s the attraction there?
It’s just what I wanted from the very start. I wanted to create a new esport from battle royale, so that’s the culmination of my dream. The esports space is still very fresh and very niche; it’s for gamers only. I want to see it expand out into the mainstream, I want to see it on ESPN. We’ve already seen some Dota and stuff on ESPN, but I think a game like Battlegrounds is much more relatable for those who are not into gaming.
Games like Dota, Overwatch, and Fortnite to some extent – it’s quite hard to watch them, as a non-gamer, because you’re not really sure what’s going on. I can’t really watch a game of Dota without someone telling me exactly what’s going on, you know? (laughs) With PUBG, it’s infinitely more relatable because it’s very easy to understand. There’s a story, and it’s a different story every time. It’s very watchable. It’s not that I want to break into the glittery world of esports – it’s just that’s the dream I’ve had for the battle-royale game mode.
Have your dreams changed as your life has changed?
Not really. I’ve always said this: all I want is to be at our first event in a stadium. And then seeing battle royale as an esport, we’re starting to get there. We’re not trying to rush it. We really wanted to make sure the platform was there, the tools were there. And if the community want it, it will happen. But we don’t want to kind of go, “Well, we’re the next new greatest esport”. This is something we want to work on to make sure we get it right. Without your community, without your players, you’re fucked, so you really have to make sure they’re involved to deliver a great game for them.
So after you achieve that dream, what’s next? You don’t seem the kind of person to sit still.
Oh, no. Look, there are other games I want to play, right? It’s not about other games I want to make, it’s other games I want to play. And I want to make some things. I’m not going to share anything about other games I have ideas for, but I have other ideas. But for me, until battle royale and Battlegrounds is somewhat at an esports level, that’s where I can look at doing something else. I have many other games I want to play – and I hope to get the chance to make them someday – but right now I want to get Battlegrounds kind of finished.
How do you move on after making a phenomenon? There’s a bit of a cautionary tale in what the pressure did to Notch.
Well, I’m not a billionaire. (laughs) Yeah, I am dreading my next game, because it’s Playerunknown’s Next Game. And there’s going to be eyes on it. No matter what I do, there’s going to be a lot of critics going, “Well, it’s no PUBG.” And I’ve accepted that – I am not going to make a game that’s going to get like, three million concurrent users, and tens of millions of players every month. But I’m not aiming to make that. I want to make a game I want to play, and if other people want to play it, that’s fantastic – but ultimately, if they don’t, I’ll still have a game that I can play. So that’s my outlook: I’m probably going to get shit on, but that’s okay.
Are you going to put your name on the next game you make?
I have no idea. I’ll release it untitled. Or just call it Playerunknown’s Next Game!
Any estimation of how long it’ll be before that happens?
I have no clue yet. I want to get this done first. We’re really making some good headway this year on esports. We’ve got some great new hires now. Our new CMO, he’s ex-Riot, he helped launch League in Korea, so he has a lot of experience with bringing an esport to a market.
So did you know who your new CMO was before you hired him? You didn’t Tim Schafer it?
I Tim Schafer it with everyone. Like, really, I don’t know anyone in this industry, so it’s a joy for me to meet these people, and get to talk to them without that sort of air of ‘Oh my God!’
It’s a bit like how Nintendo likes to hire designers who actually don’t know that much about games.
Right? I saw that and I was like, yeah – because it does benefit you when you’re not burdened by the knowledge of games. Even with me, because I don’t play a lot of games, I don’t get unduly influenced, so my vision for PUBG was always kind of pure. I wasn’t influenced by other people. A producer friend of mine just doesn’t listen to music. Just doesn’t. Because he doesn’t want to be unduly influenced by what is going around in the music industry. I get that.
“I AM DREADING MY NEXT GAME, BECAUSE IT’S PLAYERUNKNOWN’S NEXT GAME. AND THERE’S GOING TO BE EYES ON IT”