I lang tid virkede det som om at PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds var den perfekte Early Access-succeshistorie, med konstant voksende antal spillere, en fast lavere pris og gode Steam-anmeldelser fra tilgivende fans. Men, til trods for at spillets popularitet stadig vokser, så er udviklingen vendt. Anmeldelser fra fans styrtdykkede, og brugerne har vendt sig imod Bluehole Inc og skaber Brendan Greene.
Nu indrømmer Greene, at dette sandsynligvis skyldes implementeringen af mikrotransaktioner, der tager form af det klassiske kasse/nøglesystem, og det er særligt fordi at han i sin tid lovede at sådan et system ikke vil finde sin vej ind i Early Access-versionen af spillet. I et interview med GamesIndustry kommenterer han på det faktum at spillets modtagelse blandt fans på Steam nu er "Mixed":
"We got hit hard. I said we wouldn't have microtransactions until we left Early Access, but it comes from my naivety. To be fair, we're still not adding any kind of skin system with microtransactions fully until we leave Early Access, but we do need to test it, and we need to test percentages."
"And we're going to be open about it going forward, because we really think that having a strong economy is good for the game. We have the data science team to really work to find out what percentage stuff needs to be to attain a certain value. We want to be open about this because it's a good system and it's proven to work. We got hit hard with that, for sure."
Dog forsvarer Greene hele tendensen ved at pointerer, at størstedelen af spillerne stadig er tilfredse:
"But you've got to look at the actual number of people that visit Reddit and use your social media, and it's maybe 10% of your player base - maybe. The biggest part don't read reviews, and they don't read Steam reviews. You can get these bombs, a huge amount of negative reviews, but it's just the way it works on the net these days; you've got a hive mind, mob mentality kind of thing, or bandwagoning behind people. And look, people have a right to say what they want, y'know, but with some reviews I feel bad because it'll say something like 'Performance is shitty', but when we improve it they won't go back and change that review."</i>
Påvirker mikrotransaktioner i Early Access din oplevelse og opfattelse af spillet?