Who created PUBG: the wedding photographer in Brazil

Who created PUBG?

PUBG, a shooting game in which up to 100 people fight over an island, was born from the ideas of Irishman Brendan Greene. He created the rule and directed the game, but PUBG was made by a team at the South Korean studio Bluehole, now called Krafton³⁴.

Greene was born on March 29, 1976, in Ireland³. Before PUBG, he had never worked in games. He knew basic coding from making websites, and says he was never a serious gamer¹.

What did the creator of PUBG do in Brazil?

He photographed weddings and made websites. He moved to Brazil with his wife in his early 30s. In 2013, at 37, he was divorced, earned about 300 dollars a month and was trying to save enough for a plane ticket back to Ireland, as he told CNBC¹. Other sources say event photographer and website designer, and ESPN also mentions work as a DJ²⁵.

To save money, he cut back on going out. "I was kind of stuck in my bedroom, basically working and playing games," he said¹. That is where he discovered mods: versions of a game that players themselves change, altering the rules¹.

Where did the idea for PUBG come from?

From a film and from other people's games. In the Japanese film Battle Royale, from 2000, students are dropped on an island, given weapons and forced to fight until one is left¹⁵. Greene brought that rule into games that already existed, building on mods other players had already made, and gave the first versions the film's name¹.

He liked this kind of game because it wasn't linear: it was a world where you were set loose, in his words¹.

How did he support himself while making the mods?

On welfare. In 2014, he managed to move back to Ireland, but couldn't find work near home. He moved in with his parents and started receiving about 180 euros a week from the government¹.

But the mods had to stay online, on computers running all the time. He paid for those computers with the welfare money¹. His parents, worried, asked whether it made any money. He answered that someday he might get to make his own game, "but, right now, no"¹.

How did he get to PUBG?

First through Sony. A developer at Sony Online Entertainment saw someone playing his mod on a live stream. In late 2014, after about six months living with his parents, Greene was called in as a consultant on one of the company's games, H1Z1, which got a mode based on his idea¹.

The job lasted about two years and got him off welfare¹. But there he gave ideas, and the company's team made the decisions (our reading, based on the consultant role).

In 2016 came the message from South Korea. Chang-han Kim, who led a team linked to Bluehole, had seen the mods²⁴. Greene flew there the day before his 40th birthday². A month later, another message arrived: the studio wanted him to move to South Korea and take charge of the game².

How do you play PUBG?

Up to 100 people parachute from a plane onto an island, empty-handed. Each one runs after weapons and gear in houses and villages. Over time, the map's safe zone shrinks and pushes everyone closer together. The last person, or the last team, left standing wins⁴.

Why is PUBG so gripping?

Because no match repeats itself. Greene wanted unpredictable matches, with random elements, so players wouldn't know what to expect and would want to play again⁴. Where you land, the weapon you find and the spot where the safe zone closes change every time.

How long and how many people did it take to make PUBG?

About a year and a half, with a large team. Work started in early 2016, with the goal of finishing in a year. The team started with about 35 people and grew to about 70 by June 2017⁴.

A still unfinished version went on sale on March 23, 2017, and the full version came out on December 20, 2017⁴. Greene said sales took off "from Day One"¹.

By the numbers

And after PUBG?

In March 2019, Greene stepped down as the main person in charge of the game and went to Amsterdam, in the Netherlands³. In 2021 he left Krafton and kept his own studio, PlayerUnknown Productions, which is chasing a bigger idea: huge worlds with many players at the same time³.

The road did not stay straight. In June 2026, the studio announced staff cuts and stopped developing one of its games. Greene said he had reached the limit of how far he could fund the project in its current form⁷.

What does the PUBG story show, and what doesn't it show?

It shows that the idea for a huge game can come from someone outside the industry, who changed other people's games the way he wanted to play them. The rule fit in one sentence: a hundred people, one island, only one gets out (our reading).

The other side

Greene did not make PUBG alone. He made the mods alone; the game was made by a team of 35 to 70 people at a South Korean studio. The idea came from a film and from other players' mods. He knew basic coding. It took years of work without earning anything, paid for by welfare, and PUBG was made without AI. He is a survivor: for every mod that became a game, thousands never left a small group of players. The sales and download numbers come from the company itself.

And what does AI do today in that part?

This part is not about PUBG, which was made without AI. It is about the work.

What weighed on Greene's story was knowing only basic coding, paying for computers with welfare money and depending on an entire studio for the game to exist. Today, people who don't code can describe a game in plain English and AI writes the code, draws and makes the sound, which got the name vibe coding. That doesn't make the work easy: testing, fixing and deciding are still up to you, and a game the size of PUBG is still huge.

What still belongs to the creator is the idea: watching a film, imagining the island and deciding that only one gets out (our reading). To start with something the right size, see what AI does and what stays with you, other famous games that started small and whether it's too late to start making games after 40. More stories are in the Stories section.