Samsung Electronics closed out this year’s PlayGalaxy Cup, a global PUBG Mobile esports tournament, with a world final at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne on August 27–28.
On the surface, that’s a routine esports headline. The more interesting business story is the format change behind it. For the first time in the tournament’s six-year history, Samsung ran it as a full season, with regional qualifiers feeding into a single global final, rather than as a standalone event.
Qualifiers took place across five regions, including North America, Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Europe. In total, 32 teams from 17 countries took part. The top two teams from each region, 10 teams from nine countries in all, earned a spot in the World Final held at Gamescom.
One-off gaming tournaments are, in business terms, a marketing expense: a company pays for a moment of attention, and when the event ends, so does the engagement. A season-long league works differently. It requires players and fans to check in repeatedly over weeks or months, which gives a brand more touchpoints with the same audience and more opportunities to fold in product messaging along the way.
That kind of investment generally only makes sense if a company sees the tournament as an ongoing platform rather than a one-time promotional push. Traditional esports leagues in PC and console gaming have gone through a similar evolution, moving from isolated tournaments toward franchised, calendar-based seasons for exactly this reason: recurring engagement is worth more than a single spike of attention.
David Moon, Head of Influencer Marketing for Samsung’s Mobile eXperience (MX) Business, also highlighted that this was the first time the tournament had run as a full-season format and noted that the company was glad to bring together players from around the world for the event.
Samsung’s esports strategy also extends beyond its own tournaments, with partnerships forming another part of its investment in the sector. Just a few months back, Samsung Electronics was named an official partner for DreamHack Birmingham. Around the same time, Norwegian esports organisation Metizport also announced a new partnership with Samsung, naming the company its official monitor partner.
