Banger Games, PUBG and the nonexistent Krafton partnership

Some wildely circulated news about a partnership between PUBG and the NFT/Blockchain platform Bangers that was revealed last week isn’t happening.

We almost got finessed.

What happened? Some finessing attempts apparently.

PUBG Battlegrounds and the announced partnership with Bangers

PUBG: Battlegrounds was set to integrate NFTs in 2023, with the blockchain handled by Banger Games, or so we were told.

Essentially, it would introduce a reward system for players and the platform has been alpha testing some of the game modes to see how things would work out.

The Alpha Game Modes and Challenges announced so far were:

• License to Kill: Mad Max – It rewards players for getting more kills, with headshots awarding extra points. The goal is to make it up the rankings and only the 10 best games will qualify for the rankings.
• There’s No Going Back: Kill Frenzy – Players would be rewarded for running over as many people as possible in the game.
• The Guilty Shall Suffer: Ghost Killer – The system would reward players for sniping their targets from afar. The greater the distance, the higher the points.

Given the numerous scandals and controversies in the NFT space, gamers have always been reluctant when it comes to combining Web 3.0 with the gaming space. And this time, it seems like they were right.

There is no partnership between PUBG and Banger Games

According to the Korean video games news thisisgame.com, the partnership wasn’t a real one. The platform by Banger was completely unrelated to Krafton, the company that develops PUBG, and that the reports from overseas blockchain media were false.

The report also mentions that there’s a chance that Banger Games is a ‘scam site’ that can potentially leak personal information since it asks for things like the password to sign up for the website. After signing up and applying, it only says that “it will take some time until the actual service starts”, meaning that the alpha test is just a false premise to get personal information from users.

In other words, Banger Games used the game to promote NFTs without its permission and it can be yet another scandal in the Web 3.0/Gaming space. According to the news website, Krafton are currently in the process of figuring out the circumstances and they are reviewing the need for legal action.