PUBG Global Championship

The PUBG Global Championship (commonly abbreviated as PGC) is an annual tournament organized by KRAFTON, the game's developer and publisher. The tournament serves as the final event of the competitive PUBG esports season, and crowns the official PUBG Global Champions for the respective year.

Serving as the first international PUBG Esports tournament hosted by PUBG Corp., and a precursor to the Global Championship, the 2018 PUBG Global Invitational was announced on 24th April of 2018, and was hosted in the Berlin's Mercedes-Benz Arena in July of 2018. PGI featured 20 teams from 11 competitive regions, decided through the regional qualifiers hosted in the Spring of 2018, a prize pool of $2,000,000 USD, and a separate tournament and Global Champions for the first-person and third-person perspectives. Additionally, each of the participating teams have received their own in-game hoodie, with 25% of it's revenue being distributed to the respective squads.

On November 6th, 2019. PUBG Corporation introduced the official pro competitions in nine different regions around the globe (uniting the EU, CIS and MEA regions into a single EMEA region in the process) , recognized as a part of the 2019 Official competitive season, while moving the now-rebranded Global Championship from July to November, while retaining it's position as the official World Championship tournament for PUBG Esports.

A brand new format and system have been introduced for the PGC 2019, with a number of teams being increased from 20 to 32, and a addition of Group, Elimination and Semi-Finals stages leading to a 16-team, 2-day Grand Finals. The prize pool have been retained at 2,000,000 USD, but PUBG Corp. have introduced a revamped revenue share program, which featured the tournament-branded items, with 50% of item total revenue being shared among participating teams. Half of the 50%, 25% have been added directly into the PGC prize pool, while the other 25% have been distributed based on the percent of votes each team received in the PGC Pick'Em Challenge event.

Additionally, from 2019 onwards the PGC winning team receives an official in-game skin, with 25% of it's total revenue being distributed to the team.

In the announcement of the PUBG Global Series on January 30th, 2020, PUBG Corp. announced the changes for the Global Championship starting from the 2020 onwards. The new format have decreased the number of teams participating in the Global Championship from thirty-two to sixteen, and reintroduced a single-stage tournament format from the Global Invitational. Additionally, the qualification process have been changed, with the top four teams of the final Global Series event of the year receiving a direct invite to the PGC, and the remaining twelve spots being decided based on the Global Series annual ranking. This qualification process have been scraped with the cancellation of the Global Series, with the PUBG Continental Series taking it's place for the 2020 and 2021 competitive seasons.

While the 2020 edition of Global Championship have been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced on November 20, 2020 that PUBG Corp. will revive the Global Invitational name for the one-off 2021 PUBG Global Invitational.S. The tournament, played throughout February and March of 2021, have featured 32 teams from all competitive regions except for Oceania, all invited based on results in the 2020 PUBG Continental Series and their overall careers in PUBG Esports, battling for a prize pool of $3,500,000 USD + the share of the returning Pick'Em Challenge event item revenue. It was also the first global on-site tournament since the PGC 2019, with only the Chinese, Japanese and Chinese Taipei teams playing online due to the safety reasons.

On February 4th, 2021, PUBG Corp. announced their plans for the 2021 season, with the Global Championship set to return after a two-year hiatus as the final tournament of the year. It was also confirmed that it'll see the return of regional PGC Championship Point system as the qualification method, with the points scored throughout the seasons 4 and 5 of PCS and the various third-party tournaments.

Following the PUBG Esports ecosystem changes announced at the end of 2022 Global Championship, from the 2023 edition onwards the PGC features the top teams from the annual PUBG Global Series Point Ranking alongside the top teams from the region's respective PGC point ranking, with the PGS qualification slot treated with priority if a team qualifies through both the PGS and PGC point qualification paths.

The upcoming 2025 edition will be held in Bangkok, Thailand alongside the PUBG Mobile Global Championship, as part of the PUBG United 2025 event where both games' championships are united under one brand.^[1]

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