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Dubai, United Arab Emirates – September, 2026 – As technology continues to evolve and digital creativity expands, games have become platforms for discovering and developing talent, while creating opportunities to reach audiences around the world. PUBG MOBILE offers a clear example of this, bringing together competitive gaming, creative content, and initiatives that enable players and creators to turn their passion and skills into real opportunities.
The impact of this ecosystem extends beyond delivering an advanced gaming experience. It also creates new spaces for talented individuals to showcase their abilities, whether through competitive play or by creating content that enriches the experience for players.
One example is Abdullah Abdo, known as “Tayyar,” who won first place in the PUBG MOBILE Voice Creativity Competition 2025. The competition gave him the opportunity to turn his talent into part of the gaming experience through a dedicated voice pack featuring around 30 recordings created for different gameplay situations and in-game communication between players. His story demonstrates how creative initiatives can give talented individuals a platform to bring their ideas to a global community of players.
These opportunities extend beyond in-game content to supporting the local voices that have helped shape the esports landscape across the region. The new PUBG MOBILE podcast, “Words Not Said In Front of the Camera,” is an example of this approach, with an original Arabic-language series that spotlights the people and stories behind the competitive scene across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
The podcast features players, commentators, and prominent members of the PUBG MOBILE community sharing in-depth conversations about their journeys, experiences, and challenges, while revealing sides of their stories that have not previously been heard. Among these are the stories of commentators Mola and Mostar, one of the most prominent duos in Arabic commentary, alongside the experiences of creators and other talents who have contributed to building the PUBG MOBILE community across the region.
These stories highlight the role PUBG MOBILE can play in developing local talent, not only through competition, but also by giving creators, commentators, and content creators the space to build professional careers and reach wider audiences across the region and around the world.
These efforts come alongside the growing success of regional talent on the global stage. At the PUBG MOBILE World Cup 2026 in Paris, five teams represented the MENA region, with two progressing to the Grand Finals in one of the region’s strongest showings in the tournament’s history.
Nigma Galaxy finished ninth globally with 106 points, making it the highest-ranked team from the MENA region at the tournament. AlUla Club finished 14th with 83 points after securing its place in the Grand Finals through the Last Chance stage. Geekay Esports also made its mark by winning the tournament’s opening match and claiming the first victory of the competition, while 721 GS and ETSH Esports competed in the Last Chance and Group Stage respectively.
These results reflect the continued growth of the region’s competitive scene, as more teams and players make the transition from local competitions to the global stage. With two of the five participating teams reaching the Grand Finals, and Nigma Galaxy securing a top-10 global finish, teams from the MENA region continue to close the gap with the world’s top competitors. Achieving greater consistency across the competition remains the next step in their development.
The region’s presence at the tournament extended beyond competitive performance, with the tournament’s coverage generating significant engagement across social media platforms. It recorded more than 125 million views, over 4 million engagements, and more than 220,000 new followers, alongside more than 388 posts published throughout the tournament period.
Across the tournament as a whole, the PUBG MOBILE World Cup 2026 ranked second in peak viewership, recording 1.79 million peak viewers, highlighting the growing global interest in the competition and the scale of the audience following teams and talent from across the world.
These figures demonstrate the expanding reach of the game’s community and the evolving relationship between audiences and esports. Viewers are increasingly immersed in a complete ecosystem encompassing players, teams, stories, and competition, connecting communities across countries and cultures.
This participation also demonstrates that investment in the esports ecosystem across the Middle East and North Africa extends beyond organising tournaments. It encompasses developing talent, supporting creators and commentators, strengthening local communities, and creating platforms that tell the stories of the people who have contributed to the growth of the scene.
These achievements are part of an ecosystem that places players and talent at the heart of the PUBG MOBILE experience, bringing together competition, creativity, and content while giving talented individuals opportunities to develop their skills, build professional pathways, and reach global audiences. From local competitions to global finals, and from casting matches to creating content and telling stories, PUBG MOBILE continues to support the voices and talents contributing to the growth of the esports landscape across the region, strengthening their presence on the world’s biggest stages.
More broadly, this evolution reflects the region’s growing focus on developing the creative economy and esports, while creating environments that give young people the space to express their talents, develop their skills, and build careers in emerging industries. This is why PUBG MOBILE is more than a mobile game; it is a platform where creators can turn their talent into content that reaches millions of players, aspiring competitors can develop their skills through a competitive pathway that can take them to the global stage, and young talents can discover their potential within a community that offers genuine opportunities to grow and develop.
Ultimately, the value of modern games lies in their ability to turn passion into opportunity, expanding the possibilities of what can begin on a mobile screen and reach global audiences, bigger platforms, and opportunities that extend far beyond the game itself.
About PUBG MOBILE:
PUBG MOBILE is based on PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, the phenomenon that took the world of interactive entertainment by storm in 2017. Up to 100 players parachute onto a remote island to battle in a winner-takes-all showdown. Players must locate and scavenge their own weapons, vehicles, and supplies, and defeat every player in a visually and tactically rich battleground that forces players into a shrinking play zone. PUBG MOBILE is co-developed by LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS of Tencent Games and KRAFTON, Inc.
