Currently, competitive PUBG is on its short summertime break prior to the competition returning in September. Bearing this in mind, it’s the perfect opportunity to wind back the clock and review the past year of competitive PUBG 2020/21. Join us as we crunch the numbers, view the highlights and discuss the future of this esport.
This Time Last Year – Suffering Due to Competition
Over the past two years, the player count of PUBG has dwindled due to battle royale competitors out there. Specifically, this time last year, CoD Warzone sent the player count downtown.
Indeed, this time last year, the player count sat at 230,000, the esports side of things was suffering due to teams leaving and internally, the situation needed help.
Looking at it a year later, it’s safe to say everything seems to be back on track.
Fact Sheet – The Best PUBG Esports Events Over the Year
Do note that many events were held, but we’ll only be picking those at the highest level for this discussion.
PUBG Continental Series 2 – August 2020
Once again bringing the fire to multiple regions, the second edition of the PCS continued to grow the scene further. Notably, it was actually at the second series that the standing record for viewership was attained at the PCS 2 Asia Pacific event.
Here, a Peak Viewership of 118,039 viewers and an average of 61,604 viewers spurred hope into the competitive scene once again. Do note that all other regions enjoyed some strong viewership too.
Do note that all viewership statistics were taken from the publically available Esports Charts.
PUBG Continental Series 3 – October 2020
Next on the timeline for S-Tier events is another iteration of multiple $200,000 events across 4 regions. You’ll be glad to know that viewership remained strong in this period of time, once again reaching the highest peak at the Asia Pacific Event.
Although a slight decrease at 85,074 peak viewers, other regions were picking it up so that overall, viewership was very similar to the PCS 2 event.
PUBG Global Invitational.S 2021 – February 2021
It goes without saying that this was the best event in the past year – no questions asked.
Indeed, throwing $7,000,000 on the line in the heart of China and South Korea, the event aimed to be the jubilee event of the entire year. So much so, that in terms of viewership the event offered an all-time record for PUBG esports.
Thanks to Esports Charts, we have the numbers. Firstly, a peak viewership of 221,903 viewers blew the ceiling off! Otherwise, the average viewership of 118,552 is also another record.
Making an imprint on the global esports industry too, this event is the highlight of the year since August.
PUBG Continental Series 4 – June 2021
Heading into further editions of the PCS, not much needed to be changed. Bearing this in mind, for the competitive PUBG 2020/21 season, prize pools received a bump.
Specifically, $250,000 is now offered to each region. Here, viewership was slightly less especially due to the seasonal change into summer. Yet, this was compensated for by the previous Global Invitational.
- To conclude, beyond the Major events, some minor ones managed to grab some serious attention too:
- PUBG Champions League 2020: Fall – October 2020
- Champions League 2021: Spring – April 2021
- PUBG Champions League 2021: Summer – July 2021
Competitive PUBG 2020/21 – Future Looking Bright
Overall, we’re quite impressed with the state of competitive PUBG.
From last year looking dire, the ideas such as hosting the Invitational.S and offering larger prize pools have helped the scene move forward.
In terms of criticism, the only thing PUBG Corp. could work on is perhaps offering more smaller and high stakes events. Accordingly, the PCS events are great, but since they’re a month long this tends to affect viewership. Offering both long-term seasonal events and exciting weekend tournaments could be what this esport needs.
Anyways, we’re ready to get back to action with the PCS5 next month.
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