Playing PUBG and finding new friends 

I met her for the first time at the battleground, taking a headshot with an AWM sniper rifle and immediately decided, this is the girl I want to share my every squad and duo match with. Well, though it's not a true story yet, but this might become a possible storyline if one wants to remake the popular TV show 'How I Met Your Mother' after 30 years.

If you Google for news on PUBG, along with restrictions, bans, deaths and murder, you will find news of love, marriage and patch-ups which happened with the help of this game too.

You'd get to know about the strong community and social networking happening through PUBG.

Khondokar Tarin, a private job holder said, "I once invited a former college classmate, who's been a Facebook friend for a long time, to play a PUBG match with me. After that, we played every day, reconnected as friends, and soon after, my relationship status was not single anymore!"

Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, commonly known as PUBG, is an online multiplayer game, a first-person shooter battle royale game which is developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole.

PUBG was first released for Microsoft Windows via Steam and Microsoft Studios for the Xbox in 2017. It became vastly popular after a free-to-play mobile version for Android and iOS was released in 2018. PUBG is one of the best-selling and most-played video games of all time, selling over fifty million copies worldwide by June 2018, with over 400 million players in total including those in the mobile version.

It's an interactive game and the players can communicate verbally with each other. The game starts with 100 players being dropped from an airplane onto an island with the sole purpose of being the last man or the last group left standing.

This game is not about killing competitors; it's about ditching death and surviving till the end. And if one can do so, chicken dinner will wait for the winner (The last man standing is congratulated by a message saying "Winner Winner! Chicken Dinner" in the game). One can play solo, duo and squad in different mods and servers.

In November 16, 2018, PUBG Mobile earned a chicken dinner at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards, winning the award for 'Best Mobile Game of the Year.'

On Steam's list of the most popular games, PUBG is still on top, before games like Dota 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

The game has been banned in some countries, such as India, Nepal and Iraq, for allegedly being harmful and addictive for children in those regions. Some countries even put on time restrictions to control game duration in one sitting. But still if one plays the game pairing up randomly with different servers, a player from these particular countries can be found playing with different apps.

When asked how and why you play PUBG, Suresh Raj, a student from Nepal replied, "I play PUBG by using a VPN app, many in our county do the same. It is my favourite game, and I don't want to stop playing anyway."

There have been reports of many deaths, murders and cases of insanity allegedly caused by PUBG, and this is the case in our society too. But there is a positive side to social networking as well. Many people have fallen in love through the game. There are many viral stories of players getting married to PUBG teammates. 

Rubayet Haque, a fresh graduate said, "I have to play PUBG every night, so I introduced the game to my girlfriend, now we are happily playing the game with audio conversation. And if we win, I can treat her to chicken dinner! Talk about killing multiple birds with one stone!" He praised the audio quality too, saying that it is better than that of Messenger or WhatsApp.

In the game, one can become a member of a particular clan consisting of people from different countries and backgrounds who play to rank up and compete with other clans. Clans and groups have their own social media groups where they communicate more personally and organise different events and competitions amongst themselves. This idea is bringing PUBG out of the virtual world and making it more real for players.

Piyash Ahmed, a clan admin of PUBG, said his clan contains mostly Bangladeshi players, and they arranged a get together party recently after Eid. PUBG Dhaka, one of the biggest PUBG communities of our country, has recently campaigned for the first-ever competitive tournament in Bangladesh. In 2018 MercenarieZ clan (a PUBG clan name) arranged "Bangladesh PUBG Showdown 2018" for the clan.

International events and competitions are arranged around the year for both PUBG Mobile and Windows versions. Club Open, Berlin Open, Nations Cup are some of the most popular events. Gamers from different countries gather together and compete on behalf of their nation and win the cup as last man or team standing. Our neighbour, India, where PUBG is banned in many parts, has time restrictions but also has an International Title Tournament.

The game is popular among girls too. PUBG changed the perception that girls only play Candy Crush and Farmville.

Sonia Ahmed, a student of Dhaka University, said, "You can say I am addicted to PUBG. I have met really good female gamers from both my country and abroad. I love this game for the same reasons a boy does. Games are not gender-oriented."

PUBG is connecting people around the world into a network. Rizvi Chowdury, a player, said, "I am Bangladeshi but studying in Australia. The members in my PUBG group are from different countries, we became very good friends even in our personal life."

PUBG's engagement with the players is strong, and the impact is versatile. You don't kill and survive in the game only; you love, make friends, learn, socialise and make a community in this battleground.