The PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) season zero was announced by Tencent on Aug. 25. The championship will have a prize pool of $2 million, the most by any event in the history of PUBG Mobile esports.
The PUBG Mobile World League (PMWL) and World Championship (PMWC) have been merged into one to produce a single “mega-event:” the PMGC. This was done due to the complications PUBG Mobile’s esports ecosystem had to face in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. American tech company Qualcomm Technologies will be the title sponsor of the event.
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In a press conference, the director of PUBG Mobile global esports at Tencent, James Yang, revealed a lot of things about the PMGC 2020.
Format
The format of the PMGC will be similar to the PMWL season zero, which end earlier this month. This means the Global Championship will also be split into two: the regular season and the grand finals and will go on for about a month.
The regular season will go on for several weeks and will filter out the top teams that will compete in the grand finals.
Teams
Just like the PMWL season zero, there will be 20 teams competing in the PMGC. Unlike the PMWL, however, the teams will not be divided into an Eastern and Western division but will compete together.
The 20 teams will be decided based on the results of the second season of the PUBG Mobile Pro Leagues (PMPL) and the ongoing fall split of the PUBG Mobile Club Opens (PMCO).
Yang had said that every team competing in the seven PMPLs and 16 PMCOs has a chance at making it to the Global Championship.
Location
While Yang said they had envisioned a grand event with a huge live audience for the world championship, this will likely not be possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead, the teams will compete in specific “studios” spread across the world. While PUBG Mobile already has a studio in Katowice, Poland; Yang said they plan on constructing more in “China, India, and other places.”
Prize pool
The $2 million prize pool is the largest for a single event in the history of the game. The prize pool will be split into two, with one share going to the league stage while the other being allocated to the finals, similar to the PMWL season zero.
Yang said that in the league stage the prize pool distribution between the teams will be more “flat.” This means that even the low-ranked teams will receive a significant share of the prize money.
In the finals, however, this will not be the case as the prize pool will be divided into an inverted pyramid structure. The top teams will get much more than the bottom-ranked ones.
