PUBG’s first global tournament was a success – mostly anyway

The debate between fans of Fortnite and PUBG is never-ending. Which game is better? Which game is the one for kids and which one is for ‘real men’? Well, depending on who you ask, you’ll get a different answer of course, but let’s keep it diplomatic and say they both have their pros and cons.

Fortnite is simply more popular and has far more players at any given time. It’s also less bug-riddled than PUBG is, even now. That said, Fortnite’s first attempt at a tournament failed pretty spectacularly. PUBG’s on the other hand, went pretty well, despite the flaws the game is still subject to.

Some 50-odd million people have bought the game across different platforms since it’s release in spring of last year, and despite somewhat dwindling numbers now, the game is immensely popular. So popular, that people have been calling for it to be made into an esport practically since its launch.

Now, finally, the first proper event took place in Berlin. With an overall prize pool of $2M, this event is nothing to scoff at. PUBG – as you probably know – started off as nothing but an ARMA III spin-off that was picked up by an inexperienced and unemployed developer. Brendan Greene aka Playerunknown had actually been on welfare not too long before PUBG. He would have been happy with about a million sales of the title, but just months after it first appeared in stores, the game became a massive hit.

With an overall budget of $3 million, Bluehole, the developer company is all but daring people to disagree with the game’s jump into esports. The World Championship hosts 20 teams from around the world to find the best of the best – bugs aside.

The game still has plenty of those of course, but even so the event was a huge success. There was a bit of an upset when it came to the winners – Kentucky player Mossy, part of Team Gates along with players Mortify, Cillo and Exko were rather favoured to win. They were the top qualifiers from North America, but it all started to go downhill in the warm-up tournament played in Berlin – they came in dead last. During the actual tournament they didn’t do much better – Team Gates would up in 17th place, and another North American team took the win – Ghost Gaming.

It’s hard to pinpoint a specific reason for their success – everybody at the tournament was, of course, exceptionally skilled! The games were played in sixteen games in total – eight games in each of the two play-modes, FPP and TPP each.

The stats for the games were changed a little – circles were less random and powerful weapons spawned more frequently, to eliminate some of the ‘unfair’ random elements that occasionally have players crossing the entire map while others lay in wait the entire game.

There are still some growing pains – in most games, two teams of several people compete in one game, but since PUBG has such a huge number of players and teams, it’s difficult to give them all the coverage and attention they deserve. One solution to this issue is the possible implementation of more broadcasters – if there is a host for every team, or at least one host per two teams, that would make it easier to really report about the interesting bits of every game. It would also mean that no random 360 noscope could pass the viewers by – and it would be a shame if that happened, wouldn’t it?