Fortnite is just a copy ofPlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds? You fool. You haven’t even begun to see ‘copying’ yet.
Krafton likes money. Krafton likes money so much,they allegedly cheatedtheSubnautica 2team out of hundreds of millions of dollars. And if Krafton likes money, then they must really, really likeFortnite.
A recent investor call from Krafton executives has given us hints on where PUBG might be headed - specifically, they’re aiming for Fortnite’s game-as-a-content-platform model.
“In the age of PUBG 2.0," Krafton CFO Dongkeun Bae says (thanks,Gamefile), “it will not simply be a battle royale game per se.” They’re aiming for a “gameplay platform”, in the vein of Fortnite andRoblox.
This new platform model, naturally, would place a lot more focus on user-generated content that keeps users in-game even if they’re not playing PUBG proper. And since it’s what all the big kids are doing, PUBG would likely let users monetize any experiences they create.
The Battle Royale Genre Is Dying, But Fortnite Seems Immune
The numbers don’t lie, Fortnite’s handling this very well.
At this stage, plans to make PUBG into a big content platform are not set in stone. No release timeline was presented at the investor call, for instance.
When it comes to this new ‘platform’ model, Krafton said that they’re “developing wide-ranging modes under that objective.”
We may have to wait and see what Krafton has in mind for the future of their game, though since they’re very much on the ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ train here, we don’t have to look far to see what they’re aiming for.
It’s Fortnite. It’s Roblox. And it’s all the money Krafton’s executives could ever dream of.
From Copied To Copycat - PUBG Loves Money
Krafton’s perception here isn’t alone. TheWar Thunderdevs also spotted the Fortnite-platform money printer - though instead of changing their game, they just spent millions buying rights to a fanmade Fortnite map.
War Thunder Devs Have Legally Purchased A Fortnite Map
Just bought more land in Fortnite, feelin' good
Krafton’s new plans likely also explain their desire to move PUBG to Unreal engine. It’s something they’ve been looking at for a long while now, and the CFO said they’re “speeding up the development process” to make the switch happen.
Unreal - which, like Fortnite, is also made by Epic games - has been developing more support for user-generated content, which likely explains why Krafton is so keen to bring the engine to Fortnite.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - and given the history between the old-head PUBG living in the shadow of Fortnite’s success, we may have gone beyond flattery at this stage. A true enemies-to-lovers story if I’ve ever seen one.
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