Ahead of the December 12 release of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds on the Xbox One, redditor Macsterr posted a clever "ad concept" image for the game. It featured a PUBG fighter strolling through waist-high grass contained within the walls of an Xbox One console, which was itself laid over a blue sky background. Simple, stark, and eye-catching, it was really good work.
So good, in fact, that a slightly modified version of the ad ended up being adopted as official marketing. Unfortunately, Macsterr knew nothing about it.
Shortly after Macsterr posted about it, Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hryb, also known as "Major Nelson," responded to say that Microsoft was looking into the matter. "In the meantime, our official channels have pulled down the asset in question," he wrote.
It's possible that the official ad was created completely separately and independently, and just happens to be based on the same idea, though it would be a stunning coincidence. It's also not clear where the ad actually came from: It might be the work of an external ad agency, rather than Microsoft itself. Hryb said he'd follow up once he had more details, but Macsterr hasn't shared any updates as of yet.
