PUBG Esports must seek reset, not pretend a status quo PUBG Esports will start their final Circuit of PUBG Global Series on Wednesday, October 14th as the first global tournament since the PUBG Asia Stars crisis last month. But just pretending that nothing really happened is not enough considering the aftermath of Asia Stars. The crisis has exposed long-standing problems with Krafton’s esports tournament management and the growing distrust between Krafton staff and its own esport community. PUBG Esports needs to reflect on its current direction and seek a wide reset to rebuild their relationship with players, teams, streamers and fans. First, Krafton must acknowledge and settle the long-standing issues with PUBG Esports that they created, and force a revamp of their policy towards maintaining their own esports rulesets, including a global standardization of the regional rules. After years of mismanagement in this regard, from missing security checks during the global LAN events to attempts of downplaying any major competitive integrity violations (like NVIDIA Inspector, PGC2024 collusion, and first days of Asia Stars crisis), Krafton should put an end to the issue by stating and executing that any proven future rule violations will be quickly and severely punished by the tournament administrators or Krafton. PUBG Esports should also open up for a major shift as for the communications between Krafton and both the external stakeholders (players, teams and TOs) and its own fanbase. The management has continued to ignore the feedback and avoid an open discussion with orgs and players about the direction of PUBG Esports, to a point of them being indirectly hostile to anyone providing what they perceive as negative feedback. It reached a point where the quote “It’s not worth providing any feedback because Krafton will do whatever they want” has become a painful reality when discussing the state of PUBG Esports off-the-record. Even with stakeholders not taking a step forward in contesting a status quo, often deciding to choose silent approval to Krafton’s decisions instead of attempting to contest them publically, Krafton must improve and open up their communications pathways with PUBG Esports community to regain their trust in the game developer. Decisive action is also required in Krafton’s internal esport management. In particular, the PUBG Esports leadership should disclose the internal review regarding their management, due to external Vietnamese staff informing Himass and Tanvuu that streamsniping wasn’t banned ahead of them breaking the PUBG’s Rule of Conduct and rumours of PUBG’s Marketing team leading the Asia Stars event management, leading to creation of tournament’s faulty rulebook. Leaving this within Krafton’s headquarters would only deepen the distrust towards the management. PUBG Esports community and some of the sponsors have sent a clear signal that Krafton have mismanaged their response and decision around the ongoing Asia Stars crisis, deepening their opinion of PUBG Esports being significantly mismanaged. If Krafton’s goal is to withstand the storm rather than seek a direction change and address their concerns, the future of the scene is in danger. 📷 OGN PSS "Basic" (2018)