PUBG Esports: The clock is ticking to announce 2020 Season

Last month, PUBG Esports put a bow on their inaugural season in Oakland, California at the PUBG Global Championship. Three weeks after and PUBG Corp. has remained silent as players and orgs await an announcement about the 2020 Season.

Less than a month ago, the PUBG Esports inaugural season culminated at the PUBG Global Championship, a three-weekend tournament starring the best squads from around the world. Despite the mishandling of team-branded in-game skins, PUBG Esports was still able to share the revenue from PGC themed skins, which increased the total prize pool by more than $4 million dollars.

Interest in PUBG Esports reached its height from the competitive fanbase and casual players alike. Amidst a new “PGC” tab featured in-game, with an interactive ‘PGC Pick’Em Challenge’ that allowed players to predict the winning team in the Grand Finals, an opportunity to strike while the iron was hot presented itself.

Prior to the Grand Finals weekend, PUBG Corp. announced its first ‘PUBG Labs’ event mode, which allowed players to, “play like the pros”. The event mode featured match settings that mirrored ones used in PUBG Esports, with distinct differences that a casual player may notice when observing competitive PUBG for the first time. Notwithstanding its own fair criticism regarding the timing and execution of this event mode, the plan to allow players who are interested in competitive play to try it for themselves, while the biggest esports event of the year is happening, is a positive one. That said, the event mode was only playable briefly during the four-day lead up to the PGC Grand Finals.

While far from perfect in their inaugural season, the PUBG Global Championship displayed just how well this eSport can do, particularly when players and fans have the opportunity to support their favorite teams. The biggest thing the company could do to immediately improve the health of this eSport is introducing team-branded items, available for purchase in-game. If half of the generic PGC-themed skins revenue could contribute an additional $4 million dollars to the prize pool, imagine how franchise weapon skins, charms, and cosmetics would sell.

I could continue on about the desperate need for revenue sharing, but I already have. The issue PUBG Corp. faces now regarding the 2020 Season is providing some transparency and a line of communication to the players and organizations. As of writing this, there hasn’t been any information regarding the 2020 Season. Frankly, we don’t know if we’ll even see one.

The National PUBG League encountered various hurdles during the season, one of the biggest being the substantial cost of housing a team in Los Angeles. Now, rumors of the NPL transitioning into an online league begin to circulate, which presents a variety of its own pros and cons. The point being, no one across nine competitive regions has any idea of what’s happening in 2020, just three weeks before the end of the year.

National PUBG League & fortyseven communications (fortyseven) /