The biggest game of 2017 brought to life: how a famous YouTuber made a live-action version of ‘PUBG’ to fight world hunger

Popular Korean streamer combines the hit game with WFP’s ShareTheMeal app to make a difference for hungry kids

Jordan Cox
World Food Programme Insight
4 min readJan 26, 2018

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Don’t forget to turn on the subtitles!

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is the of the biggest games in the world, with close to 3 million people playing it as you read this. And now one of Korea’s most popular streamers — known as The Great Library, or GL — has made a live-action PUBG video to help in the fight against hunger worldwide.

What is PUBG and why is it so popular?

PUBG is a game for Windows and Xbox One, where 100 players compete to remain the last one standing. You and 99 others parachute out of a plane, landing on an island or in a desert, where you run around looking for food and weapons. As you play, a virtual border slowly reduces the play area, making for closer and closer battles, until the match ends with one winner. This addictive formula has made PUBG one of the most popular games on the planet.

Which brings us to GL’s live-action version — renamed PlayerUnknown’s ShareTheMeal. Here, the usual energy drinks and food pickups are replaced with high-energy biscuits and bags of rice from the World Food Programme (WFP) — the same type of real food that WFP delivers around the world to fight hunger. And instead of battling to be the last player standing, GL and his opponents have a new objective — to beat hunger by sharing a meal with a child in need, using nothing more than a tap on their phones.

The intro screen to the live-action PUBG video. Photo: YouTube/The Great Library

The video starts out with GL offering his usual YouTube commentary, this time as he selects his own live-action avatar

Left: GL streams a normal PUBG match. Right: the live-action edition. Photos: YouTube/The Great Library

Next, the GL and the other players sit in the cabin of the plane, ready to parachute out and start the match

Here’s GL jumping out of the plane and pulling his chute

But instead of fighting, the video gives players a new objective: let’s ShareTheMeal

So how can you help? Get the ShareTheMeal app and find out

ShareTheMeal is a smartphone app from WFP that lets you “share your meal” with hungry children — using just a tap. US$0.50 is enough to provide one daily food ration.

Free to download, the award-winning app is a way for you to work together and build a world with Zero Hunger. You’re in charge of your giving experience and can choose to help feed a child in need whenever you like.

The Great Library hopes “this campaign can alert many people about the current global hunger situation and WFP’s efforts in helping the people who are suffering.”

The Great Library

“I hope many people can live in a world where there is no conflict, free of hunger.”

Hunger and malnutrition are the number one risk to health worldwide — greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The annual social and economic cost of malnutrition amounts to US$3.5 trillion or US$500 per person globally.

Join The Great Library — make a difference and download the app now. And visit his YouTube page for more videos.

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