Missing PUBG

Exploring the game design behind one of the world’s most popular games

2020 has been incredible. Many fun things were banned in India, and across the world, for various reasons: eating out, travelling, living without the fear of death, and most recently in India, PUBG.

In case you’ve never heard of PUBG, but highly unlikely; it is a First-Person-Shooter game that was released in 2017 and became an instant hit. To date, it continues to be a global phenomenon. Well, except in India, Iraq, Pakistan, and Indonesia. (Yep, India isn’t the only one who banned it).

However, save for India, the other countries banned it for the very reason it’s such a big hit — addiction. And, today, I am going to explore how and why this game is addictive. Note: I am going to be talking in reference to PUBG mobile here primarily. PUBG is also available to play on computers and consoles.

The Gameplay Design of PUBG

The concept behind a game like PUBG isn’t novel. It is a Battle Royale game that stands on the shoulders of First-Person-Shooter games like Counter Strike, Call of Duty, and Action-Adventure / Survival games like Grand Theft Auto, and Assassin’s Creed.

A battle royale game is an online multiplayer video game genre that blends the survival, exploration, and scavenging elements of a game with last-man-standing gameplay.

PUBG, however, was the first game that beautifully amalgamated the two concepts of Survival and Battle Royale in a format that was easy for anyone to play. PUBG took the best of all worlds and threw it all into one game. It was designed in such a beginner-friendly manner that made it very easy for everyone.

Survival / Action-Adventure games like Grand Theft Auto (GTA), and Assassin’s Creed were graphics intensive, had a strict storyline, a large world to explore, and allowed the user to have a great amount of free-will in choosing their style of play.

First-Person-Shooter games like Call Of Duty (COD), were graphics-intensive too, but had much smaller worlds to explore (called Maps) and had a very limited set of actions a user can do.

People who completed a Survival game would find little to no joy in continuing to play it once it was over.

With First-Person-Shooter (FPS) games, you’d get bored if you kept continuously losing, or become too acquainted with the same maps and actions. There’s not a lot of exploring you can do or change strategies besides aiming better in such games. Also, in FPS games, it’s a ruckus if you end up with too many players. You’d keep dying and respawning endlessly if you’re a beginner; will take you a long time before you can learn.

Let’s explore the gameplay design strategy that PUBG uses:

• Large maps that allow players to explore the world, while also playing — Similar to GTA
• Large number of online players from across the world — Similar to COD
• Have players do just more than shooting, eg, allow them to ride vehicles etc., — Similar to GTA
• Have players to form teams and strategize — Similar to FPS games
• Allow users to communicate using voice and chat — Similar to FPS games

Individually these aren’t such incredible features, but when packaged together like how PUBG did, it becomes a great product. It took the best features of all these most common game formats and built them into one. While talking and communicating isn’t new to the gaming community, it was very new to them when the maps were this large. This allowed players to develop and explore an infinite number of strategies. Leading to endless gaming hours and fun.

Ease of Adoption

The games I mentioned above, Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and Call Of Duty (COD) , while easy to understand, were never aimed at beginners. They had a large learning curve, which can make the people who are traversing it get bored if it wasn’t rewarding enough. It also often required a high amount of tech if the games have to be experienced fully.

Controls

Both GTA and COD were keyboard-mouse or controller driven games. The problem with them is that people needed time getting used to it. There are many keyboard configurations to learn and keep in mind (at least, in the beginning).

PUBG was able to squeeze all these buttons in a very intuitive way for users to learn and understand.

Besides the standard layout, PUBG also allowed users to change their layouts based on their preference. This flexibility allowed users to make the layout as ergonomic and comfortable as possible. Differently sized hands, phone screens, preferences for the button locations could all now be accommodated easily.

Tech

About the computing power, complex games like COD and GTA, were meant to be played on high-definition screens which can showcase the gorgeous locations that many developers spent months coding.

However, PUBG alone doesn’t deserve credit for getting the tech part right. Mobile Tech has been growing at unfathomable levels in the last decade and even the cheapest of the smartphones are pretty good with their capabilities. I guess PUBG just got the timing right on this one. They had the right tech available to the masses to support their product. However, to PUBG’s credit, the code behind the game was so well designed that it made sure any and almost all smartphones can handle it.

To give you some comparison, games like Angry Birds, and Candy Crush while being just as viral at their times, neither required this much computing power nor were they this complex. They had very simple objectives with complicated levels.

So, if a player wanted to experience a game like COD to the fullest, he/she had to get a better system or console. And, that led to more expense. PUBG solved this issue with a great piece of code and also kept it free to download/play.

Getting people Hooked

Besides all of the above, there’s a bunch of design strategies that the game used. Let’s look at them one by one.

The Algorithm

While Survival games have little to no multiplayer functionality, First-Person-Shooter multiplayer games relied on a large number of players signing up.

PUBG’s algorithm ensured that all the 99 other players you were playing along with, were of the similar skill level. Through a bunch of metrics on the app, it could match you to the right demographic. This made the game very competitive for people.

Beginners, on COD, can get very discouraged if they signed on to some internet server which contains people of very wide skill-levels. This algorithm ensured that you always played at a level of competition you’re familiar with.

No rules

The game has no strict rules to kill or win over other players. Besides the fact that you must always stay in the shrinking playable Blue-Zone, there’s a multitude of ways you can play the game. You can kill another player with a gun, a bomb, riding them over with a car, etc.,

So, an incredibly large map (where you can start at a million unique locations every time you start the game) coupled with having an infinite number of ways to kill other players, ensured that the experience will be unique every time you play it.

Rewards

This particular aspect is a feature that was pioneered by mobile games since they became popular. Unlike a console or computer, these games have the unique access to your notification section and can keep buzzing to ensure you’re reminded of them every now and then.

In my experience, Clash of Clans and Clash Royale did the best use of this. PUBG too, follows a similar trend. Numerous Daily Rewards and Weekly Rewards, kept people coming back to the game. And, the nature of rewards are worthy of noting too. It wasn’t merely tool upgrades, but also often included adding fun things like dance moves to your avatars.

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In summary, it was a good execution of the famous Hook Model devised by Nir Eyal. This model presents a framework by which people can build habit-forming products. Here, the habit was playing PUBG. And, the habit is also called an addiction.

Let’s have a look at the Hook Model and also break down what features of the game fall into each of the steps in the model.

Trigger :

• Notifications from the application
• Messages from friends who were playing it (Massive Plus)
• User has an emotional trigger to win, to get that endorphin kick or to feel the adrenaline

Action :

• Just logging in can get you rewards (Daily Logins, Weekly Logins)
• With these rewards, you’re encouraged to try them out by playing a game
• You are presented with new maps, and weapons which will further reward you with adrenaline from the fast-paced gaming

Reward :

• You win (Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!) OR
• You lose but feel like you actually progressed with all those experience points you gained from the game
• Your losing will actually make you want to win the next time since you know your next game is going to be new, and will be playing with a new set of people

Investment :

• The investment here is the profile you’ve built over time, and the experience points you’ve gathered
• It also includes the mental effort that you put into making strategies for the game

Concluding Notes

I feel like PUBG has explored a new dimension in mobile gaming and this will surely encourage a lot more companies to follow suit.