There is no question that PUBG Mobile is dominating the mobile esports scene. Financially speaking, Sensor Tower reports that the game has made over $176.3 million just in January 2020, that’s 4 times more than what it generated in January 2019. Clearly, the game has a lot of excitement around it. This year was supposed to be the PUBG Mobile Year of Esports with plenty of events planned and a whopping prize pool provided. However, there are concerns that some of the public events taking place later this year may be cancelled due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
On February 14th, the PUBG Mobile Pro League started, leading to tournaments taking place in several countries. Countries and regions like North America, South America, South Asia, Chinese Taipei, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia & Singapore will be involved. The Pro League is split into the Spring and Fall seasons and will lead up to the PUBG Mobile World League which takes place in May and October.
The Pro Leagues will identify the top teams and the qualified teams will be invited to the World League. This is an exciting esports adventure and a profitable one since $5 million USD is on the line.
The events starting on Feb 14th – April 19th will take place in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, & Singapore). Events starting on March 12th – April 19th will take place in Chinese Taipei. As for South Asia, events are scheduled from March 12th – April 5th. Lastly, the North and South American Events take place from early to late April.
These events are extremely exciting but the main concern is whether the impact of the Coronavirus will lead to the public events taking place later this year of being cancelled. The World League in May is possibly a public event and might be at risk of being cancelled or postponed if the outbreak gets worse.
Furthermore, it has been reported by DOT Esports that the Overwatch League cancelled their events for the months of February and March. In addition, the League of Legends Pro League has been suspended due to the outbreak as well, Dexerto reports. The latest victim of the virus is PUBG. Forbes reports that April’s PUBG Global Series taking place in Berlin has been postponed by PUBG Corp. As we see the fear among developers and organisers is real and may impact public events that will take place anytime soon.
It is extremely unfortunate to see events cancelled as the virus continues to spread. However, this is necessary in order to protect as many individuals as possible from getting infected. Considering that many other esports events have been cancelled, it is highly likely that if any public event takes place in certain regions anytime soon, they will be cancelled or postponed. The temporary solution for games like PUBG Mobile is to keep the tournaments as online events.
Finally, we only hope that all the infected countries manage to successfully control the outbreak so that people can get back to their daily lives and esports teams and players can continue to accomplish their dreams. You can stay updated with the PUBG Events via the game’s official channel.
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