Over the final couple of days, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was hit was numerous unfavorable critiques principally from Chinese gamers.
These Battlegrounds gamers are all protesting one factor: the looks of an in-game advert for a Chinese VPN service. According to the critiques, the advert of this “accelerator” VPN seems on the sport’s foyer display screen.
This is fascinating for a few causes. First, Chinese gamers have typically complained about excessive server lag, even after they’re linked to the Beijing knowledge centre or different Asian servers. Because of this, many Chinese gamers merely choose servers in locations apart from China to try to have a greater expertise, akin to North American and Europe.
What this does is trigger extra issues for gamers native to those locations, compounding the issues additional. Combat in Battlegrounds typically favours gamers with larger ping, making circumstances the place you run into one among them a nightmare. You’ll even discover critiques from the opposite facet of the pond about this very challenge.
It’s curious, then, that this in-game VPN advert claims to spice up connection to worldwide servers, proper there within the recreation. Needless to say, Chinese gamers utilised the identical review-bombing tactic used with different video games to make their voices heard.
Here’s the chart of Steam critiques exhibiting a harsh decline in October, and we’re solely two days into the month. Reviews from this Steam user and others all inform an analogous story, while you filter out different unfavorable feedback about points with the sport itself.
It’s not clear why Bluehole would use the in-game foyer display screen to indicate adverts. PUBG isn’t a free-to-play recreation (one thing many Steam customers identified), and if that is instance is something to go by, it might imply Western audiences could quickly begin seeing adverts as properly.
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