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- PUBG Corp. will sell in-game items for the PUBG Global Championship, with 25% of sales going into the prize pool and another 25% split between teams.
- Branded, revenue-sharing team items for Global Championship organizations have reportedly been canceled.
- Spacestation Gaming and the Pittsburgh Knights both exited the PUBG competitive scene this week, following other departures.
PUBG Corporation today revealed the in-game branded items it will sell ahead of November’s PUBG Global Championship for PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, with a share of proceeds to be added to the event’s prize pool.
The PUBG Global Championship items include clothing and combat gear sets, weapon and vehicle skins, and a player emote. The company will add 25% of total net proceeds to the base Global Championship prize pool of $2M USD. Another 25% will be awarded to teams via a “Pick’Em Challenge” event, which fans can enter by purchasing any of the items. Teams will earn a share of the latter percentage of sales based on how many total votes they each accrue.
However, the PUBG Global Championship was also expected to have branded team items available for purchase, with teams receiving a cut of the proceeds, but they were not announced alongside the event-branded items.
According to a report from Esports Insider, the team items have been canceled. Sources told the site that PUBG Corp. emailed teams to inform them of the decision, stating that it was “due to the development process and the inability to ensure a high enough quality skin to represent your organization in PUBG.”
The Esports Observer has requested confirmation and comment from PUBG Corporation about the situation, and will update this story if we hear back.
Earlier this week, Spacestation Gaming announced that it has exited PUBG and will no longer compete in the North American National PUBG League (NPL), plus the Pittsburgh Knights dropped their team in the PUBG European League (PEL). They are the latest organizations to depart the game’s competitive scene following others such as Cloud9, NRG, and Team Vitality.
Players have shared concerns via social media about the impact this move will have on the competitive scene, with fear that further organizations will depart. One professional player anonymously told The Loadout, “The only reason organisations have stuck this long is because of the promised in-game skin exposure and revenue for making PUBG Global Championship, and they went back on that promise. 2020 PUBG is going to be pretty [organization]-less while they figure it out.”
The PUBG Global Championship will hold its group stage and semifinals rounds in early November at the OGN Super Arena in Manhattan Beach, California, with the finals taking place on Nov. 23-24 at the Oakland Arena in Oakland.
