PUBG: Battlegrounds is earning a lot more money after going free-to-play

Image: Krafton

The developer of the PC and console version of the battle royale shooter series has revealed in its latest earnings report that it is making a lot of money after it switched to free-to-play.

The report states that PC sales were up 61 percent year over year to $82.3 million. The sales jump on the console was even bigger than the previous quarter and year over year, with a dollar figure behind those increases. The game saw an increase in average monthly active users from the fourth quarter of 2011.

The success of free-to-play games like Call of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends proved that the free model can be quite lucrative, even if it was originally a paid title. The game that has been out for a little over three years has surpassed $2 billion in lifetime net bookings, according to the company. The money was raised in just two weeks from the proceeds of the game.

It was probably an easy decision for Krafton to switch to free-to-play. In the first quarter of 2022, the game earned $307.1 million in revenue, which was up 5 from the first quarter of the previous year.