PUBG Mobile esports director: “We want to compete with League of Legends and CS:GO”

While mobile esports haven’t yet fully taken off in the west, they’ve ballooned in popularity in regions like China, India and Southeast Asia over the past few years.

Following in the footsteps of Clash Royale and Arena of Valor, PUBG Mobile is on the rise as one of the next huge mobile esport contenders - with their PUBG Mobile World League Season Zero, which concluded last month, breaking records to achieve a peak concurrent audience of 1.1 million with over 40 million total hours watched.

Following their biggest tournament success, they’re now shooting bigger with their newly announced PUBG Mobile Global Championship - which merges the Global League and World Championship into one event and boasts a $2 million prize pool.

The announcement of the Global Championship, which starts in November, coincides with a 1.0 update for the title too - bringing in better visuals, an overhauled interface and quality-of-life features which hope to make PUBG Mobile more appealing for a wider audience. 

• Read more: PUBG Mobile reveals huge 1.0 update and new Global Championship 

Top Esport, from China, won last year's PUBG Mobile Club Open (Picture: PUBG Mobile) 

While the game has a competitive presence in western territories, with Spanish teams like UDR Killers, the scene is dominated by rosters from India, Indonesia and China. James Yang, director of PUBG Mobile Global Esports, however is looking to make growth in western territories a priority in the years to come. 

“We want to make this ecosystem pyramid in other countries with our learning from eastern countries,” James Yang told GINX Esports TV in a press conference. “That’s something we want to do but we also know it takes time. 

“Especially Europe, North America… they still, I think, need time to get used to mobile esports or even PUBG Mobile. So we’ll continue to push, we’ll continue to invest to make our own ecosystem in their countries. That’s absolutely an important mission for long term.”

The new Global Championship will start in November (Picture: PUBG Mobile) 

Their bigger mission is to go beyond what’s expected from mobile esports, rubbing shoulders with titans League of Legends, CS:GO and Dota 2 to break down the label. 

“This year our teams has had some discussions of our long-term goals. We make plans for three, five years and we decided to become a tier 1 esport. Not just the number one mobile esport, but already we want to escape from the limitations as a mobile esport.”

Citing League of Legends and CS:GO specifically, Yang added: “We want to be there. We want to compete with them. We want to go shoulder-to-shoulder with them, or even bigger - and I don’t think that’s impossible.

“That is quite challenging but that’s what we’re trying to be. We’re aiming to be not only number mobile esport, but we want to be even maybe number one esports game in the world. Some people say that’s a dream, but actually looking what we’ve done so far for the [past] three years, some people may think it’s not only a dream.”

Last year, over 100 million people watched the League of Legends World Championship, with 44 million alone tuning into the final. CS:GO meanwhile has achieved new peak monthly active users in 2020 at 20 million players, seven years after release.

But could PUBG Mobile hit such lofty heights? With a stronger foothold in the west, they might be earning more than chicken dinners in the future.

PUBG Mobile’s 1.0 update will launch 8th September, while the Global Championship Season Zero begins in late November 2020.