PUBGM x Dragon Ball to launch next year, Tencent announces
Tencent has announced a collaboration with Dragon Ball Super for its hit battle royale title, PUBG Mobile. The event will be released sometime in 2023. Further details regarding the crossover have yet to be released.
The company confirmed the news on Twitter, posting a side-by-side picture of the movie and the game. Fans of both PUBGM and DBS responded to the post with great excitement.
DBS is the latest fantasy/adventure film from the renowned shonen franchise Dragon Ball, released recently in late August to multiple streaming platforms.
Similar to previous collaborations, fans can expect the release of DBS-themed in-game items, skins, limited-time events, and exclusive rewards. In the collaborative event with Gainax and Tatsunoko’s mecha anime title Neon Genesis Evangelion, fans received rewards and in-game items by completing missions. The crossover event with DBS will likely follow the same format.
Previous collaborations
PUBGM has collaborated with various titles since its release in 2017. The events have helped boost the game’s popularity. Tencent continues to engage with titles in the gaming and entertainment industries this year. The game kicked off 2022 with a collaboration with Spider-Man: No Way Home, Godzilla, anime/manga Jujutsu Kaisen, and Netflix’s League of Legends series Arcane.
There were also collaborations with Capcom’s Resident Evil 2, and 4A Games’ Metro Exodus, as well as South Korean girl group BLACKPINK and Indonesian rapper Rich Brian.
Aiming for growth
Tencent, a Chinese multinational technology, entertainment conglomerate, and holding company, also host other titles. Aside from PUBGM, originally a PC-only game, the tech giant also developed Call of Duty Mobile and League of Legends: Wild Rift.
That said, the PUBGM has been facing a decline in download figures since 2019. In 2021, the game was downloaded 127 million times or less than half the figure in 2019 when PUBGM posted an all-time high of 265 million downloads. As for its revenue, PUBGM made $2 billion in 2021, a slight decrease from the previous year when the mobile battle royal game made almost $2.5 billion.
South China Morning Post’s Ann Cao said that the company made “almost no revenue growth” in the March quarter, and its “net profit plunged” over half of what was made last year.
Despite this, the company seems to have a positive outlook with expanding its business to overseas markets after great successes in countries across the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
Tencent CODM operation lead Yang Qi said all of the company’s titles had performed well in the regions, especially Garena Free Fire, where the company owned almost 20 percent stake.
“Garena Free Fire quickly seized the market … and performed well in Latin America, Southeast Asia, India, and North America,” Yang explained.
Tencent vice president Xia Lin said at an annual game developers conference earlier this year that the company had experienced positive growth in the regions, “far [exceeding] the scale of the Chinese market.”
“These regions are experiencing growth opportunities similar to what we saw from 2012 to 2015 [in the home market],” Xia said.
