PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds tops Dota 2 in Steam Concurrent player count

Then the servers went down

It's no secret PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is on a tear—the Early Access battle royale shooter has been raking in sales and drawing new players at an incredible rate. It climbed ahead of CS:GO in player count (over 500,000) less than a month ago, and hit 8 million copies sold earlier this week. Now it's claimed a new, perhaps inevitable victory: surpassing Dota 2 in terms of player count, making it the top game on Steam (as of this writing).


It’s a feat because PUBG would seem to face many disadvantages. Steam is Valve’s platform and Dota 2 is Valve’s biggest game, after all. Dota 2 is free to play where PUBG costs $29.99. And PUBG has launched in early access where Dota 2 is a finished game.


But PUBG packs a wallop in its own right: It’s fun, the most important part. It’s a very watchable and streamable game, which is critical to reaching widespread popularity today. And it’s a first-person shooter that offers a puncher’s chance at winning, which few can resist: Drop into a map of 100 players and be the last one standing.

PUBG's seat in the top slot might not last long: Dota 2 often boasts over a million concurrents on any given day, and is only a little below PUBG at the moment, but this is the first time Bluehole's multiplayer shooter has topped it and it certainly won't be the last.

And yet, no sooner had PUBG beat Dota 2 on its own service than this happened:

The servers are down, and we are investigating it. We apologize for the inconvenience.

— PLAY BATTLEGROUNDS (@PUBATTLEGROUNDS) August 27, 2017

This weekend also saw the PUBG Invitational from Gamescom (won by Luminosity) and teased a new map coming with the game’s next update, which is expected soon. The Gamescom tournament dominated Twitch’s viewership numbers over the four days it was held, likely drawing people in to see what the fuss is about (or back to enjoy it).