Since its early access release on Steam last year, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has remained a popular multiplayer option with the PC gaming community, with several reports detailing the game’s many accomplishments. It should come as no surprise then that the game is now one of the highest grossing titles ever released on Steam.

Earlier this week, at a roundtable interview hosted at Valve’s head studio, Valve founder Gabe Newell stated that, since the game’s release a year ago, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds had grown to become the third highest grossing game on Steam since the digital distribution platform was first created.

Newell attributed the game’s success in part to Valve’s ever-expanding hardware and technology research, which he described as an “investment in the future.” He went on further to state that it is this research, and developers’ access to it, that allowed PUBG to become such a successful title in the short space of time that it did. According to Newell, the research allows anyone to “capitalize on all the other multiplayer games, the technology, [and] the fact that China is now a huge market for anybody who does PC game development.”

Over the last year, the popularity of the battle royale genre has seen significant growth, with many popular titles within the genre (such as PUBG and Fortnite) breaking several different records, including those for the highest number of concurrent players and fastest early access game to sell one million units on Steam. The success of PUBG has seen many major publishers and developers take notice of the title, with some even rumored to be working on competitors.

It is important to note in the same interview, Newell did state that Valve will soon return to focusing on making new games again. One does have to wonder whether talk of PUBG's many successes during the interview means that Valve could be planning to release a battle royale effort sometime in the future. With Valve’s many successful previous multiplayer offerings, it is within the realm of possibility.

Whether or not Valve does decide to develop a battle royale title, it will be interesting to see how long PUBG is able to retain its spot as the third-highest grossing game on Steam with all the high profile upcoming games rumored to contain a battle royale game mode.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is available now on PC and Xbox One.

Source: PCGamer