PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ rough first tournament had 140,000 simultaneous viewers

The first official tournament for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is underway in Germany starting today, and the event has a viewer count in the millions … if you believe the Chinese livestreaming service PandaTV. While tens of thousands are watching the PUBG Gamescom Invitational on sites like Twitch and Mixer, more than 5 million are watching on PandaTV. I’ve reached out to PandaTV to verify that number, because it’s likely not accurate. Panda.tv has a reputation for inflating its viewership count.

But even if 5 million people weren’t actually watching the megapopular last-person standing shooter in China, it does have tens of thousands of viewers on Twitch. At the end of the first day of the competition, 140,000 people were watching live on the official PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds channel alone. Developer Bluehole’s first foray into the Battle Royale-like genre recently surpassed more than 8 million copies sold, but now it is also proving that Battlegrounds fans have a massive appetite for esports content as well.