South Korean game company Krafton, the maker of PUBG: Battlegrounds, has seen its profits drop for the first time in two years. Between April and June 2025, the company’s earnings fell by 26% to $177 million, while overall revenue dipped by 6.4% to $510 million.
Krafton Faces Turbulence in Profitability
The decline is mainly due to a decline in the number of players in PUBG: Battlegrounds, its most popular game. While the mobile version still has millions of daily players, the PC and console versions have been losing users.
In April, the average number of monthly players on PC dropped by 8%, and the trend continued in May, according to Bloomberg. Although there was a small increase in June, the numbers are much lower than the game’s peak in 2018, when it had over 3 million players at the same time.
PUBG Mobile remains strong, with an estimated 24–30 million daily players worldwide. However, even this version has seen a slow decline, partly because of competition from games like Free Fire, Fortnite, and Call of Duty: Warzone.
Krafton’s new game, Inzoi, had a strong start, selling a million copies in its first week after release in March. However, the game failed to meet players’ expectations. Owing to this, its active player count dropped sharply soon after, from over 87,000 to just around 4,300.
Adding to Krafton’s challenges, the company delayed its upcoming game, Subnautica 2, from late 2025 to 2026.
This delay has led to a legal dispute with the former founders of the studio behind the game, who claim Krafton postponed the release to avoid paying a $250 million bonus. Krafton denies this, saying the delay was needed to improve the game’s quality.
After these setbacks, Krafton’s stock price fell by 6.6% this month. The company will need to rely on new updates, esports events, and future game releases to regain its momentum. For now, PUBG Mobile remains its biggest strength, but the competition in the gaming industry is tougher than ever.
Amid the ongoing Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh, the gaming industry is attracting new talent, breaking a long-standing perception that online gaming is just for entertainment. In the past few years, games like PUBG and CS2 have significantly contributed to the rise and evolution of esports. These games are transforming competitive gaming into a global phenomenon with structured tournaments, professional teams, and substantial prize pools.
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