PUBG : Joon Choi, Lead Project Manager des versions consoles et Stadia, a répondu à nos questions

• 1. Can you introduce yourself please?

Hey everyone. I'm Joon Choi, Lead Project Manager for PUBG on consoles. I've been a fan of our game since it was on Steam Early Access, and just when I was addicted to the game most, PUBG reached out and gave me an opportunity to work on the console version of our game. Since then, I've helped launch the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and now Stadia versions of the game. It’s been an exciting journey so far, going through all the highs and lows, and watching the team grow. We've learned a lot along the way, and we can't wait to show you what we have in store.

• 2. What is exactly the job of Lead console Project Manager at PUBG Corporation?

Simply put, my job is to plan out what content ships on consoles and when. I help various development teams come together so we can reach our goals. Like most things in life though, things don't always go as planned, and in these cases, my job is to assess the situation and discuss the best course of action with the development teams. I'm also responsible for managing day-to-day live service issues. If we discover something isn’t working right with our game or servers, I get the right people involved to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. So, in a nutshell, my job is a lot of planning and risk management.

• 3. First of all, where are you and how is the lockdown going for you and the teams?

I'm currently working out of our headquarters, which is located in Seoul. When South Korea was first struck by COVID-19, everyone was told to work from home. While we were all pretty well equipped to handle the work from home situation, productivity and communication became that much harder with everyone out of the office. Dev teams also rely on special equipment, such as devkits, that tend to work best when connected to our office internet. While we were fortunate enough to be able to work from home during this crisis, COVID-19 put a serious pinch on our development schedule. Luckily, we were able to get back into the office sooner than expected, and now things are slowly returning to normal for us. For countries in more dire situations though, I hope everyone is safe and staying healthy.

• 4. Do you think that being on Stadia is necessary to be able to win the battle of popularity that the Battle Royale is waging?

For us, it’s not about winning a popularity contest, but fostering and evolving our unique Battle Royale experience that you can’t get anywhere else. As we continue to tweak and add new content to our game, we also want to be able to provide the largest amount of options to gamers and our fans. Each of the platforms we launch on have their own unique benefits. As a developer, we want to leverage those unique characteristics and expand our options so that a broader range of gaming fans can enjoy PUBG. That's basically a long way of saying we want everyone to play and enjoy PUBG!

• 5. Will there be exclusive content for Stadia?

Stadia will get the same game updates day and date with our Xbox and PlayStation gamers. Gamers who have access to or buy the Pioneer or Chicken Dinner Editions of PUBG on the Stadia store will receive an exclusive skin set that includes the following Stadia-themed items: glasses, Level 3 helmet, hoodie, and a parachute.

• 6. What prevented you from releasing PUBG on Stadia on day one?

I can’t speak fully to that, but I can say that game development as a whole involves many different factors and deadlines. In short, it’s hard! Jokes aside, we’re happy that we had a good partner in Stadia, which made things easy and we’re quite happy with the version you see today!

• 7. Was bringing the game to this platform a challenge?

Bringing a game to another platform is rarely an easy task, but Stadia was a different challenge for us, as it was our first foray into the cloud gaming space. Every platform has its own technical requirements to be mindful of, but Stadia was a whole different beast in some regards. It was the first time we were developing for a streaming platform, and we ran into some issues that we've never seen before. How do we minimize the effects of network latency? How do we get our graphics rendering to sync up nicely with the stream encoding and decoding? Questions like this were the sort of unique challenges we faced during the Stadia launch process. But through it all, launching on Stadia helped our development team grow, learn, and be ready for the cloud gaming future.

• 8. How was the collaboration with Google team?

Developing for a cloud gaming platform for the first time was pretty daunting in the beginning. But Google was very involved and helpful, offering rapid engineering support whenever needed, and they were very generous in providing all the tools we needed to develop the Stadia version. They even set up internal test sessions at Google, which isn’t easy when you're trying to test a game that needs 100 people. Overall, it was a true pleasure working with the passionate people at Google.

• 9. In your opinion, what arguments could convince players to choose the stadia version of the game?

Every platform has its unique benefits. Each platform provides a different experience that is best suited for each gamer’s wants, interests, and needs. So, at the end of the day, gamers have a choice, which means everyone wins. That’s why we’re so excited for Stadia. It gives gamers a lot of choices since cloud-based gaming lets you play instantly across multiple screens, including TVs, PCs, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices.

• 10. Will there be a separate matchmaking for stadia and PC players?

Yes, Stadia and PC players will be put in separate matchmaking pools. Stadia players using controllers can play with and even party up with Xbox One and PlayStation 4 players.

• 11. What are your future plans for game content?

A. Without sharing too many details, what I can say is that we'll be focusing this year on adding additional features from the PC version and fine tuning them so that they work nicely with console devices from a performance and UX standpoint. Lastly, the experience for the same game could be different when playing on consoles, and for a long time, the console team has longed to fine-tune vehicle and weapon balancing so that it feels more "console-y". And with the resources we now have, our console game designers are constantly testing out balance, and we hope to implement these changes piece by piece throughout this year. Please find more information here!