PUBG Mobile World Invitational 2023 is more popular than last year’s edition

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The PUBG Mobile World Invitational 2023, bringing together the top teams in the world at the Boulevard Riyadh City in Saudi Arabia as part of the massive Gamers8: The Land of Heroes festival, concluded on July 16. It bettered all the metrics from the previous edition, vindicating the decision to change the format from an Afterparty Showdown event to an Allstars Stage this time. This also meant the number of games across all stages at the event rose from 30 to 36, attracting more viewers from more parts of the globe.

A dominant Vampire Esports rose from the Allstars Stage to notch 227 points at the end of 18 Main Tournament rounds, including four Winner Winner Chicken Dinners, to emerge victorious and take home $432.5K. The Thai side also broke a slew of records, including most WWCDs (team), most top-three finishes (team), total rescues (player), and total eliminations (player). The runner-up was Six Two Eight, who clinched a distant 138 points to pocket $232.5K.

  Basic stats and most popular matches from the PUBG Mobile World Invitational 2023   

The PUBG Mobile World Invitational 2023 notched 516K Peak Viewers during Round 2 of Day 1 of the Main Tournament. This was when Indonesia’s Alter Ego Ares, representing the SEA Super League, claimed a WWCD, including 11 kill points, while Nepal’s DRS Gaming ended third with three kill points.

The PUBG Mobile event also hit 9.6M Hours Watched and 245K Average Viewers over 39 hours and 15 minutes of airtime. It was also a pretty good event for Alpha7 Esports — who ended fourth — and Fire Flux Esports — who placed sixth — as they represent two popular markets for the game, i.e., Brazil and Turkey, respectively. Speaking of the performance of non-Asian sides, Serbian team Gaimin Gladiators — whose European Dota 2 side is the most dominant one today — finished third with 121 points.

While Indonesian more or less stayed the same in terms of share of the viewership pie, English saw a fall of 12.46% from the PUBG Mobile World Invitational 2022. With no Indian side, whose audiences usually contribute well to the language, and with more teams geared towards their local region, this language could not get as many eyeballs as last time. Also, with Alpha7 Esports, the only representative from the Americas, finishing second last year, the interest among English-speaking audiences loyal to their region was much lesser this year.

Instead, it was Nepali that saw a huge rise, despite the number of representatives from the landlocked country remaining the same at both iterations: one. Both sides finished 11th, but with more participants this time around, fans got a better sense of accomplishment this time around after teams from the nation flattered to deceive many times before.

Also, with PUBG Mobile banned in India and the nation, one of the strongest in the game’s esports scene, not having any representatives in these events for some time, Hindi has completely dropped off the charts. With fans in the country still hoping for a resolution, with problems hitting its successor, BGMI, as well, it remains to be seen what happens to the battle royale shooter in the region.

Coming to platforms, YouTube was the most successful one, taking up more than 55% of the overall chart. However, it did see a drop of 16.13% from last year, with TikTok’s share increasing by 10.14% in contrast, once again pointing to its growing influence on the esports broadcast scene, especially in the Asian market.

Viewership comparison of all the PUBG Mobile World Invitationals

  Comparing the viewership stats of the three PUBG Mobile World Invitationals held so far   

In terms of leading the numbers, the first edition of the PUBG Mobile World Invitational, held in 2021, is massively ahead. With the concept introduced that year and replacing the much-vaunted World Leagues, it attracted a large number of viewers and ended as one of the most popular PUBG Mobile competitions ever.

Moreover, it had two phases, being held for the East and West regions, meaning more teams (16 each made it 32 in total) participating, which helped it reach more fans globally. The 2023 iteration lies in the middle of the pack, having done much better than 2022 but not quite as well as its inaugural cousin.

The PMWI 2022 was also the first to come under the Gamers Without Borders flag, which has since grown into a renowned esports festival. This year, it has promised to be bigger than ever, including a $10M charity prize fund and perhaps the largest prize pool ever for any esports tournament, at $45M.

With this mid-season international tournament over, the next biggest event will be the PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2023. One of the highest-paying esports competitions, it will emanate from Turkey, although the venue and dates are yet to be decided.