Pubg amuse me as a case study, the game come from nowhere and got insanely popular.

I know part of it is because the game is stream-friendly. The bubbles of downtime give the streamer time to chat with the subs.

But I did not expect it to be beat Counter Strike and Dota, obviously there is something more to the game.

Perhaps it's because it's a fairly novel idea which has not been used much before. The "me vs 100" concept is new and fresh and it's not something we could have 20 years ago I guess.

Another thing, perhaps more important, it's because it's a "me" game. Forget teamwork, I'm the best muthafucka out there and I'll prove it by killing everybody else. It's the hardcore version of "1vs1" me, except fighting 1 you fight everybody else.

And yes, you could do that on the old "deathmatch" like Unreal or Quake but I feel on deathmatch the player with best aim wins and not-so-good players slowly migrate to other games.  On PUBG you can try to outsmart people or just get lucky and panic headshot the last person standing and get your dinner. Yes, the person with best aim will still win more but it's not as obvious and that illusion makes people coming back.

Or dunno, maybe people really like chicken.