Shortly after early access release: "PUBG Blindspot" discontinued

It remains a brief pleasure: The tactical shooter "PUBG Blindspot" was discontinued a few weeks after its early access release. The developers of the online game inform about this in a Steam post. They realized that they would not be able to deliver the hoped-for gaming experience to players in the long term.

The developers from ARC Team do not go into more detail about the reasons for the abrupt early access end. The suspicion arises that interest in the top-down shooter was simply too low to justify additional development resources. After the launch at the beginning of February, a maximum of 3000 players played simultaneously on Steam; in recent days, there were only a few hundred. "Blindspot" is a top-down tactical spin-off of the popular shooter "PUBG".

Problems with cheaters

In an earlier Steam post, the developers also report problems with cheaters, against whom measures had been taken. Cheaters are a big problem for modern online games and can, in case of doubt, cause fan communities to die out. In the case of "PUBG Blindspot", however, this does not seem to be the decisive reason for the early shutdown. The comparatively few reviews for the game on Steam are decent: 70 percent recommend the shooter – many of them wish that publisher Krafton had invested a little more money in marketing.

"PUBG Blindspot" is a Free2Play game that did not have an in-game shop in its early access version. Accordingly, players have not spent any money on the title, so the developers at least don't have to worry about refunds. The servers were shut down on March 30th. Since then, "PUBG Blindspot" has no longer been playable as a purely online title.

Future of the developers uncertain

The developers at the studio ARC Team hope that they can develop other games together in the future. For the time being, however, they need time to regroup. Experience shows: Many development studios do not survive such a resounding flop. After the online shooter "Highguard" was also discontinued after only six weeks, numerous employees of the studio Wildlight Entertainment were also laid off. The team's website now spits out a 404 error.

The monetization model of live service games is designed for the long-term sale of in-game items. For this to work, such games must reach and retain a certain user base. If players drop off right at the beginning, it can be difficult to turn things around.

(dahe)