PUBG Mobile Esports is facing its worst possible failure in their three year history of competitive tournaments. In one of the most bizzare hacking incidents in South Asian esports, PUBG Mobile Club Open: Pakistan region is postponed for the third time in a month to scan suspected players for hacking.
PMCO Fall has been a journey full of hacking scandals and team disqualifications. This grievous chain of events began with a preliminary investigation launched for teams in PMCO Pakistan where the tournament was halted midway. Soon after this incident, the officials released a statement that declared “Four teams from Pakistan are banned for lifetime in PUBG Mobile esports“.
The entire South Asia edition was subsequently alleged of hacking and hence, PMCO for India, Pakistan and South Asia regions were postponed for some time for clearing the allegations. A massive ban wave was launched within the next four days where a total of 19 teams were disqualified from the PMCO India and Pakistan.
The matter should have been resolved by now but PMCO Pakistan is still being suspected of having hackers in the semi-finals stage due to which it is postponed. Semi Finals comprises of the best 24 semi-pro teams qualified from a long phase of online qualifiers.
Hackers managing to breach into group stages was a big thing in itself but now alleged hackers being present in the semi-finals, managing to bypass the initial screening stage, is an unfortunate yet unexpected thing for the officials handling this matter.
The officials were apparently going to use an anti-cheat app for the rest of this tournament but there are no signs of its usage for now. Either that application was not used or its ability to provide a fair platform is ineffective.
Hackers sneaking into the biggest stage of regional tournaments questions the integrity of PUBG Mobile tournaments and its anti-cheat initiatives like Ban-Pan and recently introduced enhanced Spectating System. Mobile Esports is just rising in these countries and such incidents taint the entire industry as a whole.
