PUBG: Battlegrounds celebrated its seventh anniversary this year, and it’s still going strong. The free-to-play battle royale shooter has welcomed millions of players from around the world during those seven years, and the development team has been focused on releasing new content and updates to keep that massive community engaged.
“The key thing that I’ve learned over the past seven years is how important fans are,” said Taehyun Kim, Production Director of PUBG: Battlegrounds. “Our game has been serviced globally and it has been played in many countries and by many people around the world. So we keep looking for ways to satisfy diverse countries and diverse fans.”
Kim has been a member of the PUBG team since its initial phase of development in 2016. He worked his way up to Production Director, where he is now responsible for guiding all aspects of the game’s progress. We got a chance to sit down and chat with him in Cologne, Germany, where he and his team were on hand for gamescom.
Throughout our discussion, Kim stressed how vital he thinks it is for developers to stay in contact with their player base. He’s even been going out of his comfort zone to engage with fans publicly in new ways.
“I had a livestream with Korean users, and it was really, really challenging,” Kim said. “I’m a developer, not a professional emcee, so I was afraid. ‘Oh, what if I make a mistake in front of this many people in real time?’ But I think, of course it is difficult, but I need to keep challenging myself and I have to continue this effort.”
That effort is one of the reasons he came to Cologne. He attended PUBG: Hot Drop Cologne, an in-person event that allowed fans to meet the game’s devs, partners, and other special guests. It was one of the first times Kim has had direct contact with Western players, which is something he wants to continue to improve at.
“I’m Korean, and I’m more comfortable speaking in Korean, so I have been communicating with Korean users using livestreaming,” he said. “But that was kind of my preparation to more effectively communicate with Western and English-speaking users. Currently we are looking forward and we are looking at different ways to more effectively communicate with our users around the world. So starting with this gamescom, we are going to keep continuing this effort to communicate with our fans.”
Of course, building a community relies on more than devs connecting with players. It’s also about allowing players to form connections with each other. August was Clan Month, which added weekly clan challenges and a new rewards system. It also allowed players to join the fan clans of eight popular esports teams. It all builds to a special tournament at the end of the month, when clan members get the chance to team up with professional players.
“For the clan system, what we want to offer to our players is to create an environment where they can create a new community and they can enjoy the game together, they can complete the missions together, and get the rewards together,” Kim said. “So doing this, they can enjoy the game with more fun with their squadmates and their clan members.”
Kim and his team also know that for a community to stay active, they need updates and new content. He stressed that he and the dev team have a clear design philosophy and are very careful about what actually gets incorporated into the game.
“Through our communication events in Korea, I’ve learned that what is more important is not to do something big, but to do something consistently,” he said. “Our theme is survival, so we do not want to undermine this core gameplay.”
With a player base as huge and diverse as PUBG’s, player feedback comes from every corner of the world. Different players want different things, some of which directly contradict each other. So Kim and his team have to always keep that design philosophy in mind.
“For us, community feedback is very important, but we are getting a lot of feedback from many countries and from many types of users,” he said. “Sometimes, feedback is very different, even for just one feature. So we think what is important is we need to incorporate the feedback which is more relevant to our game and also we need to set a benchmark that the incorporation process should not undermine our core gameplay.”
As always, PUBG: Battlegrounds has plenty for players to look forward to. A zombie mode is on the way, an upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 is in the works long-term, and Kim said there are plans for plenty of other things that he can’t reveal yet. If you want to get in on the action, you can download PUBG: Battlegrounds for free on PC, PS4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and a mobile version is available on iOS and Android.
