​PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has taken the competitive gaming world by storm, with many esports organizations signing professional squads. Small online tournaments and even a few larger LAN events with large payouts have taken place, but the game has many problems that will hold it back from ever being a popular spectator esport as currently constructed.

Since the game was released in early access, many bugs and glitches found in PUBG have been documented. Players would phase through the map and end up in the endless ocean below the fighting. Perhaps it is the server lag that makes it appear like the player is in cover and yet they are still getting shot and killed. But these are all technical problems that can be fixed on the developer's end. What will end up preventing PUBG from being a successful esport is the pace of the game.





When all of the players land on Miramar or Erangel there is a flurry of battle as teams of individual players fight for loot. Places like the School or Pecado are hotly contested with kills coming in left and right. The issue that this creates is that there is simply too much going on for any observers to accurately depict all of the carnage. Fans are going to end up missing out on a lot of action simply because it can not all be captured at once. This is in no way the fault of the observers, it is just the way that the game is.

Apologies for the faulty graphic, here's the correct one.



There is a six, seven, eight joke in here somewhere! pic.twitter.com/dO3K7hmveH — ESL PUBG (@ESLPUBG) February 19, 2018

Now a potential fix would be to just spectate your favorite team or player, but even that could raise problems. If they simply do not engage in early action or get eliminated, it would cause the watcher to either wait it out for the next game or go find another stream. This could get confusing and could not happen at LAN events, since the players can not put up personal streams there.





Now besides that action packed early game, there is the issue of the mid game. Most of the mid game is PUBG is players just running or driving to the circle, gathering information, and not really taking engagements. It is all about positioning which can make for a pretty boring viewing experience. This is not the fault of the players, this is simply the correct way to play the game at a professional level. The mid game mostly just has the observers looking at the map and pointing out the interesting positions of some of the teams.

​​ The final part of the game is truly the only good spectating moment in PUBG because the map is small enough to keep an eye on most if not all of the firefights. Since many of the players and teams have been eliminated by this point, observers have less to worry about and can show everything going on. Also all of the teams are pretty geared at this time, so it makes the game much more fun and exhilarating. The problem is you have to wait so long in order to actually get to this part. Most people would just tune in for the end, then tune out again.





PUBG is still a very fun game to watch if you are watching your favorite streamer tear it up and go pub stomping. But at a professional level all of the players are so good that it is rare to see a very high kill game from anyone. I do hope that I am wrong and that PUBG has a very long and successful esports life, but the odds are certainly against it.

Cover photo courtesy of Bluehole