PUBG Creator Wants Battle Royale Genre to Grow, Just Not Through Copycats

The creator of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds hopes to see the battle royale genre grow so long as its growth isn't the result of other copycat games.

Speaking to Radio 1's Gaming Show, PUBG creator Brendan Greene talked about his immensely popular battle royale game that's swept through Steam and is now live on the Xbox One version.

"I want other developers to put their own spin on the genre ... not just lift things from our game," Greene said during the interview.

While PUBG certainly isn't the first game to build on the battle royale formula and capitalize on the king of the hill gameplay, it's certainly the most prominent game in the field at the moment. PUBG has dominated Steam since it was released into its current Early Access form by amassing millions and millions of players in what's still an unfinished game. The release of the game on the Xbox One only looks to expand that dominance by bringing the game to consoles for the first time, even if there have been some questions surrounding how well the game runs on consoles.

"I want this genre of games to grow," Greene said.

"For that to happen you need new and interesting spins on the game mode.

"If it's just copycats down the line, then the genre doesn't grow and people get bored."

Some imitators are a bit more obvious, but while BBC didn't quote Greene as calling out any specific games or developers during his Radio 1 interview, one game that might come to mind is Epic Games' Fortnite. The game introduced a battle royale mode that's taken off since the release, but not without a situation between PUBG and Fortnite surfacing where Greene spoke out against the game mode and called it "a bit lazy."

But Greene's comments extended to more than just his own game as well with the creator highlighting smaller games as victims of the copycat problem as well. After mentioning that "there's no intellectual property protection in games," Greene said that some games occasionally go unnoticed only to be ripped-off by someone else.

"Then someone else takes the idea, has a marketing budget, and suddenly has a popular game because they ripped off someone else's idea. I think it's something the industry needs to look into."

The full Radio 1 Gaming Show episode featuring Brenden Greene will be available in January, according to BBC.

[BBC]