The PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) 2021 grand finals, which takes place from Jan. 21 to 23, features 16 teams from around the world. While eight teams have traveled to Dubai and Singapore to compete in the grand finals, the remaining teams are playing remotely from their boot camps.
In circumstances like this, it begs the question of how competitive integrity is being maintained. Tencent’s director of esports, James Yang, explained how the organizers are keeping the tournament fair in a press conference yesterday.
Yang said that they were two parts to integrity: the network and checking the overall environment of the teams to make sure they follow the rules.
With teams spread around the world, Yang said there was “no way” to cover that distance on one server. To solve this problem, Tencent flew eight teams, mostly from the West, to Asia for the PMGC grand finals. Despite this, they are spread as far as the Dubai-based teams in the Middle East and DWG KIA in East Asia’s South Korea.
For this, Tencent has implemented a “fair ping technology.” This tech tracks the ping and provides a similar range to all the teams so that no one has an advantage.
“We’ve done a lot of testing for the PMGC finals and so far our network was okay,” Yang explained. “Sometimes the network is picking up accidentally. It’s hard to say 100 percent but I believe we already have prepared the practically best way to provide a fair network to all teams.”
Related: Tencent’s director of esports explains why the PMGC 2021 grand finals is not a LAN event
Tencent has also sent referees to all of the teams’ boot camps to secure the environment and make sure that no rules are being broken throughout the tournament. There will be referees in place for the teams in Dubai and Singapore as well.
“I can say that in the PMGC grand finals, integrity is [being] kept so that the players can compete and show who will be the best team in the world,” Yang said.
