Foreign publishers fill G-Star 2026 as Korean majors stay away

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• Korea's PUBG Mobile Team Finishes 6th on Day One of Asian Games Finals Korea's PUBG Mobile team finished in 6th place on the first day of the finals at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. After winning a silver medal at the Hangzhou Games, Korea aims to secure another medal in the remaining six matches on September 29.On September 28, at the Aichi Sky Expo in Tokoname, Japan, Korea scored a total of 38 points across six matches, placing them 6th among 12 countries.Thailand led with 75 points, while Indonesia was in 3rd place with 55 points. Korea ended the first day 37 points behind the leader and 17 points away from the bronze medal position.Korea started strong in the first match, earning 9 points and finishing in 3rd place, but fell behind in subsequent matches. In the fifth match, they added 7 points, including 2 kills.In the final sixth match, Korea survived alongside Japan, Pakistan, and Thailand, ultimately finishing 2nd after a close competition with Thailand, which allowed them to climb to 6th place overall.The PUBG Mobile finals feature 12 countries competing over two days in a total of 12 matches, with final rankings determined by cumulative scores. Each day consists of six matches, with points awarded based on survival rankings and eliminations.Based on Krafton's 'PUBG: Battlegrounds' intellectual property, PUBG Mobile was first included as an official medal event at the 2022 Hangzhou Games, and it continues to be a competitive event at this tournament.This tournament differs from the Hangzhou Games, where a modified format excluded direct player combat due to Olympic values. Instead, players navigated a course in vehicles, shooting targets to determine rankings.In the Aichi-Nagoya Games, the traditional battle royale format is used, allowing direct player confrontations. The 12 teams compete on the same battlefield, accumulating points based on survival and eliminations to determine the final standings.Korea's PUBG Mobile team was first adopted as an official event, winning a silver medal at the Hangzhou Games, where China took gold and Chinese Taipei secured bronze.On September 29, Korea will compete in the remaining six matches, with four matches in Erangel and two in Miramar, determining the final medal winners.* This article has been translated by AI.
• Vietnam's PUBG Controversy Leads to Team Withdrawals and Sponsorship Suspension The controversy surrounding the fairness of the PUBG international event hosted by Krafton has escalated following the withdrawal of the Korean team and the suspension of sponsorship activities. Vietnamese players admitted to receiving external information during the match, but user backlash continues over the apologies and the organizers' response.According to the gaming industry on the 20th, the issue arose after the first day of the 'PUBG Asia Stars 2026' tournament held on the 17th. The event features 48 participants from six Asian regions, including Korea, China, Japan, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, and Vietnam, with eight players each. The final rankings will be determined by the cumulative scores from nine events held over three days from the 17th to the 20th.Vietnamese representatives HIMASS and TANVUU issued a joint apology, stating they checked their live broadcast chat on a secondary monitor during the match and received some information from outside the game. They expressed regret, acknowledging that this information could have given them an advantage or affected other teams, specifically apologizing to the Korean team and KOR_SOOPI.However, they did not admit to directly watching the opposing players' broadcast, known as 'cheating.' The two players claimed they understood that checking live chat was not prohibited by the rules and that there were no specific guidelines provided beforehand. Krafton accepted responsibility for not sufficiently clarifying operational standards to ensure fairness.On the 19th, Krafton excluded the two players from the remaining matches and implemented measures such as delaying the broadcast of key matches, reissuing operational guidelines, and enhancing monitoring. However, they did not disclose how much external information may have influenced the results of the first day's matches or how they would handle the scores already obtained, announcing further investigations instead.The Korean team protested the organizers' response and the players' apologies by boycotting the Day 2 matches on the 19th. Korean team member Kim Seong-tae noted that he had been informed by Krafton prior to the apology's release that the Vietnamese players would acknowledge their cheating, but the actual apology differed.Streamer and YouTuber Soopi, who was affected by the incident, expressed his frustration on the 20th via an online streaming platform, stating, "I managed the chat to prevent derogatory comments about Vietnam. What I received in return was a fixed message in the live chat claiming that the Vietnamese player who cheated said, 'Soopi also cheated.'"The controversy has also impacted sponsors. Official sponsor Baegok Coffee announced on the 20th via their website that they had received customer disappointment and concerns regarding the tournament. They stated they would confirm the facts and the organizers' response before deciding on further actions. During the review period, they have begun to temporarily suspend related sponsorship activities, including CM, menus, and events.* This article has been translated by AI.
• Esports has the money. Can it run a tournament? Graphics by AJP Song Ji-yoon SEOUL, September 21 (AJP) - Krafton launched PUBG Asia Stars on Sept. 17 ambitiously dubbed as a new pan-Asian showcase with 48 participants from six regions, a $70,000 purse and a format inspired by the Asian Games. Within two days, it had lost control of the competition. All eight Korean participants boycotted the second day over the handling of suspected cheating. Krafton removed two Vietnamese participants, revoked their PUBG Partner status and, on Sunday, canceled the final day. It said prize money would be paid equally across the participating regions. The cheating allegation remains under investigation. In the meantime, the Korean streamer at the center of the episode ended her own broadcast at 5 a.m. to write a post explaining why she had not cheated herself. It was a major pratfall for an industry in which South Korea is a powerhouse, arriving just as esports takes a prominent place at the Asian Games in Japan. Two Vietnamese participants, Himass and TanVuu, were found to have accessed information outside the game while running their own viewer chat on a second monitor. Krafton says it is still investigating whether they directly watched another participant's stream, used outside information during play or passed such information to teammates. When a Korean participant first asked organizers to investigate suspected stream sniping, however, he was told it was not stream sniping. Korean viewers then did much of the investigative work themselves, circulating clips and translations of the Vietnamese players' voice communications. Krafton has since said it is examining broadcast footage, match video and point-of-view recordings. The Korean term for what happened is bangpeul, or "broadcast play" — watching a rival's live stream during a match to learn information unavailable inside the game. Information, not just mechanical skill, decides matches at the top of nearly every competitive title. In a battle royale, the payoff can be instant and terminal. Knowing an opponent is prone behind the second rock on a ridgeline turns a coin-flip firefight into an execution, with no second leg in which to recover. Krafton's PUBG Asia Stars 2026/ Courtesy of Krafton Krafton's rulebook carried general obligations on fair play but did not clearly spell out chat-borne information, watching another player's stream or the sanctions either would bring. The target of the suspected Day 1 stream sniping was Soopi, a Korean streamer competing under Krafton's own PUBG Partner Streamer title. Within a day, she was the one being accused. Vietnamese accounts circulated posts claiming she had cheated, assembling their case from screenshots of programs visible on her taskbar during a replay. A link to the allegations was pinned at the top of one accuser's live chat. "I've never done stream sniping or hacks, and I have no intention of doing it," she wrote on Sept. 20, explaining why she had cut her stream short. "My gaming PC has one monitor, so unlike a certain someone, I can't look at the internet on a second monitor beside it. I don't know why I even have to say this." She had spent the week closing her YouTube comments and banning viewers when anti-Vietnamese slurs escalated. What came back, she wrote, was an accusation from the other side that she had been stream sniping too. Her demand was not that Krafton ban anyone. It was that the company strip her of its own partner title if it could not stand behind it. "Why hand out Partner Streamer status if you can't protect us when we get sniped and cyberbullied," she wrote. The sponsors moved first. Coffee chain 10 Billion Coffee suspended its campaign on the morning of Sept. 20 after complaints piled up on its customer inquiry board. Kkanbu Chicken, where Nvidia's Jensen Huang shared fried chicken with the Samsung and Hyundai chairmen last October, shelved related promotions that afternoon. Graphics by AJP Song Ji-yoon Krafton canceled the final day that night, though a company official told AJP it would be difficult to link the decision directly to the sponsors' moves. On Reddit, the argument ran in every direction but repeatedly came back to one point. "While there might still be moral criticism regarding the fact that stream-sniping isn't fair play, the responsibility for that lies with Krafton," one user posted. Krafton rejects the premise that what collapsed was an esports tournament. "It was clearly not an esports tournament," an official told AJP. "The accurate term would be an event match." The company frequently offers prize money for events featuring influencers, the spokesperson said, and confusion arose partly because some Vietnamese participants happened to be professional esports players. Krafton's formal esports leagues, she added, are run by an entirely separate department. Inside the company, that distinction may be clear. Outside it, it was barely visible. Asia Stars had regional rosters, professional players, a published rulebook, sponsors and a cash purse. Krafton itself promoted it as a tournament inspired by Asian Games medal events. Nothing obvious to viewers distinguished a competition backed by esports-grade safeguards from one that was not. The esports Krafton does recognize carries stakes no hobby does. PUBG Partner Streamer Soopi's stream record of her receiving answers over alleged stream sniping during PUBG Asia Stars 2026/ Captured image from Soop The Asian Games opened in Aichi-Nagoya on Sept. 19, with esports a medal sport across 13 titles through Oct. 2 and PUBG Mobile among them. South Korea took silver in PUBG Mobile at Hangzhou and is chasing gold in Japan. Under South Korea's military-service system, an Asian Games gold medal can qualify a male athlete for arts-and-sports service rather than regular active-duty service, making the consequence of a disputed result extend far beyond a podium. The money is not hobby money either. The 2025 Esports World Cup in Riyadh carried a prize pool of more than $70 million. Dota 2's The International passed $40 million in prize money in 2021. Questions over integrity are hardly new. South Korea's 2010 StarCraft match-fixing scandal ended with 11 players banned for life from professional StarCraft competition and criminal proceedings against those involved. Five years later, prosecutors in Changwon uncovered another StarCraft 2 match-fixing ring involving players, a coach, brokers and financial backers. At the 2012 League of Legends world championship, evidence surfaced that a player on Korean team Azubu Frost had looked at a venue screen displaying information about his opponents. He was not the only player caught looking at screens during the tournament. Riot Games investigated the incidents one by one, weighing what it called "intent, severity and tangible impact." It fined Azubu Frost $30,000 after concluding that the information had affected subsequent play, but allowed the match result to stand. Organizers then changed the screen setup before the final. The case was not remarkable because esports had eliminated cheating. It was remarkable because the publisher showed its work. More than a decade later, governance remains fragmented. A 2025 systematic review in the International Sports Law Journal noted the continuing absence of "reliable and independent arbitral institutions" in esports and surveyed proposals ranging from universal codes of conduct to stronger independent oversight. Krafton says it is working on the problem. In game footage of PUBG: Battlegrounds/ Courtesy of Krafton "On Sept. 19 we replaced the participants and revoked their PUBG Partner status, among other measures, and we are currently conducting a thorough investigation," the company told AJP. "If further violations are confirmed, we will swiftly take corresponding action, and we will transparently share the investigation results and measures to prevent a recurrence." The company has also said future competitive events will spell out such matters as broadcast delays, restrictions on outside information, monitoring procedures and sanctions in advance. An exhibition with a $70,000 purse is the cheapest possible place to learn that lesson. The expensive version is a medal final, with a career and a military exemption riding on whether somebody's handset reset or somebody's second monitor was open — and nobody in the room whose job is to say so. AJP Takeaways - Krafton canceled the final day of its PUBG Asia Stars event on Sept. 20, 2026, after all eight South Korean participants boycotted the second day on Sept. 19 over the handling of suspected stream sniping by two Vietnamese participants. - The event, which drew 48 participants from six regions and carried a $70,000 purse, ended without final standings; Krafton removed the two players, revoked their PUBG Partner status and will split prize money equally across regions. - Krafton told AJP the event was an event match rather than an esports tournament, and said it would act swiftly and disclose its findings if further violations are confirmed. - The episode coincided with the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, where esports is a medal sport across 13 titles through Oct. 2 and a gold medal can qualify South Korean men for alternative military service.