The message that young preteens and teens are hearing is "iPhones and iPads are wack because they don't have the cool game". They don't care about the cost of v-bucks and who gets what percentage of the money. They just care that they can't play a game but their friend at school who has an Android can.
Apple has to feature PUBG because they have to show their customers that they still have cool games to play. Otherwise they run the risk of killing their iPhone gaming market just like they did the Mac gaming market. When you think desktop gaming its pretty likely that you think Windows first, because Mac has a really weak selection of games and many of the biggest titles are Windows only.
That's what Apple is now desperately trying to avoid happening to iOS as well.