PUBG Mobile Finally Taken Down In India

–Kakali Das |

Tencent Games on Friday said that it was terminating all services and access for PUBG Mobile users in India to comply with the government’s order that was released on the month of September. The Company on Friday said and I quote, “To comply with the interim order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology dated Sep, 2nd 2020 Tencent Games will terminate all services and access for users in India.” To refresh the memory of the readers, in September, PUBG Mobile and 117 other applications were banned in India as the government termed, “This is prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity and defence of the Nation”. Although the ban had come into play, the existing users could still play the game in September until the servers finally shut down on 30th October. As a result, it will now become difficult for the users to actually gain access into the game and play it. Moreover, in the last couple of days the teaser of another game called, FAU-G has been released and the game is apparently going to be launched in November. This game is said to be an alternative to international games like PUBG, CODM etc.

Post the ban in September, the existing players could still play PUBG Mobile but that won’t be the case anymore. Tencent, a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate holding company, basically, has discontinued all the connections with India owing to the Indian government’s ban on it. Whereas, the PC version of the game is actively working and gamers can still play PUBG on PC and on gaming consoles as it has not been banned. PUBG Mobile and PUBG PC are both same games but with very different graphics. PUBG PC was released in 2017 which started the battle royale craze across the globe, followed by the mobile version of the game a year later in 2018. The accessibility of the game on the mobile devices have allowed eager fans to play on their devices whenever and wherever they wanted to with the availability of unlimited data by JIO. On the other hand, one has to have a console or a high end PC to play the PC version of the game which many in the country doesn’t have. PUBG PC is not a free application unlike the Mobile version of it which can easily be downloaded through app stores for free. As PUBG Mobile performs with a much lower resolution, it performs best in smartphones. There are almost 400 million users in India that have smartphones but not many have a PC. Hence, PUBG Mobile is more popular than the PC version of it.

“As an alternative after the ban I have started playing COD (Call of Duty), Valorent and the games which are similar to PUBG. But apart from gaming, I have started blogging too and people have started showing interest in my contents on the blogs. I also conducted a talk show in which I shared one of my personal stories relating to PUBG and which happened with my family and a few friends. Overall, when PUBG was available people didn’t bother watching anything else but now they are willing to watch and explore different kinds of games with different possibilities”, Hydra Alpha Clasher, a PUBGM Streamer and YouTuber said.

There have been a lot of speculations on whether PUBG Mobile will come back or if the ban will be lifted. After PUBG Mobile severed ties with Tencent Games in India they were constantly in search of an Indian company to partner with. And now as the servers went down it seems like the curtains have come down too. “But it’s very likely for PUBG Mobile to be back because the PUBG Corp., the Korean company has cut publishing ties with Tencent and Tencent has announced that they will transfer all the in-game data of the players to PUBG Corp. and now they can publish it on their own with an Indian partner, so chances are high for a game like PUBG that has made Indian Gaming what it is today. Since people are demanding the return of it and the root cause of the ban which was its relations with China and the security or privacy concerns associating it is now out of the frame so chances of its return is 100%”, Aman Garg, Co-Founder, Ebullient Gaming India said.

The Hindustan Times has an article which says that 175 million PUBG Mobile downloads have happened in India so far. There had been a massive increase in the number of downloads during the lockdown because everybody was cooped up at their homes and the only social interaction that happened was through this game. Even the people who weren’t good at playing, they went online only to meet and spend virtual time with people inside PUBG. The game became a part of socialization for people in the lockdown. Not only the downloads but the streamers said that the number of views on their streams increased too since people were finding ways to while their time away and find respite mentally amidst the chaos. People could talk with each other, jump, build strategies, stimulate their brain cells, roam around together and many more by playing PUBG – everything that is possible outside in the real world, they did it inside the game and hence could relate better.

The future of Indian Gaming Scene has slowed down a bit after the ban of PUBG but it can be taken in a positive way. People, who were limited to playing PUBG Mobile earlier would have the urge to explore and play various other games too. Before it was PUBG-M which dominated the entire gaming scene in India; audience wanted to watch playing PUBG-M and nothing else and as a result few streamers couldn’t explore different games or show the high graphics of high end PC games. The streamers have got the chance to explore and discover new possibilities now. Simple games like AMONG US, FALL GUYS, VALORENT along with, an Indian action-adventure video game developed by Nodding Heads Games, RAZI: AN ANCIENT EPIC have starting grasping the audience’s attention now.

Speaking of FAU-G, one of the streamers said, “The teaser of FAU-G was quite interesting and I don’t know much about the game but I will be more than happy to play the game once it’s released”. Not to mention, 20% of the net revenue generated from the game will be donated to ‘Bharat Ke Veer’ which gives homage and support to the country’s brave hearts.

The ban affected Indian gamers, for instance, because there was a global circuit that India missed out on in terms of a huge international tournament or PUBG Mobile world League. “The issue here is that it was Tencent which conducted tournaments globally and now when PUBG Corp. disassociated with Tencent to continue its own ties with India, the tournaments in which the Esports players were competing and qualifying for international platforms, we are unsure as to how will all be managed since now we are independently tied to PUBG Corporation if it comes to us. So esports might be a little different from earlier”, Aman Garg said.