Brendan Greene, also known as PlayerUnknown, may no longer be working on the battle royale game that still carries his name, but the impact its development left on his person remains clear. In an interview during Spain's Gamelab conference, Greene described his time leading the development of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the tumultuous post-launch period, and the harassment and abuse he's faced as a result of the game's overnight success.
The issues started with PUBG's launch, with Greene describing how the game's server tech was built for a million concurrent users, only to have 3.2 million. "We had to do so much to catch up," Greene described, noting that, "We were a team of 30, 35 people." PUBG's developers were overwhelmed and doing their best. But despite the game's Early Access status, some players were demanding impossible changes and improvements and blamed the development team for not meeting their expectations.
"It's crazy, the hate I received. I just have to ignore it," is how Greene describes what's become routine harassment for him online. He's been told, "that they hope I burn to death and die slowly," and has had violence threatened against his daughter. Greene even explains that his design team has been affected by harassment, that, "they really took it to hear, and that kills me."Â During his time working on the game, harassment remained consistent.
Greene likens some of the harassment to people who believe they're offering criticism but take it too far, or who don't care to understand how game development works:
"You enjoy playing the game, and we love your feedback, but ultimately it has to be our vision... You really have to be careful about dealing with that feedback, and ensuring that the vision stays relatively pure."
Greene has since written off working on a battle royale game again.
While the weight of Greene's experience with harassment clearly continues to stay with him, he also acknowledges how it has helped him grow both as a person and as a leader. Health has become a priority for Greene, who after working 14-hour game development days on PUBG now insists on taking weekends off and ensuring he makes the most of his vacation time.
Greene isn't speaking just about himself either; he wants to instill this same philosophy into his new studio, the PUBG Special Projects team. He aims to get his team to a place where they work "four days a week and have a day to do whatever they want." Happiness is his priority for his development team, but even he acknowledges that they're all going to have to work hard to get to that point.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is available now on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and mobile devices.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz