PUBG Mobile has been officially discontinued in India from today. That is, now users will not be able to use PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite in any way. The company also thanked the users for supporting PUBG Mobile in India.
Recently, the Government of India had banned 118 Chinese apps, including the popular PUBG Mobile. But even after the ban, users whose phone was already downloaded in the phone, they were able to use it. At the same time, the company has officially announced that this game has been completely stopped in India from today, 30 October. This means that now users will not be able to use the downloaded game.
Company Announcement via Facebook
PUBG Mobile has announced on its official Facebook account that ‘Tencent Games is going to discontinue all its services and access in India from 30 October 2020 i.e. from today, following an interim order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on September 2, 2020. is. Security of user data has always been our top priority and we have always complied with the applicable data protection laws and regulations in India. But we regret leaving from here. Sincere thanks for your support and love for PUBG Mobile in India. ‘
PUBG Mobile was being played even after the ban
Despite the government-imposed ban, the game was still available on some smartphones. The users were able to play this game comfortably, in whose phone it was already downloaded. Also, after downloading this game’s APK file on the phone, users were still enjoying this game by connecting to simple internet. But now this will not happen.
Loss to PUBG Mobile
Indian users account for 25 percent of PUBG Mobile’s total userbase. After the ban of this app in India, the company has suffered a lot. After the ban on it, the market value of this game was seen to drop by about $ 34 billion (about Rs 25.16 trillion). Through this game, the company used to earn the highest in India.
What happens to my data?
Tencent Games in its announcement states that it has “always complied with applicable data protection laws and regulations in India. All users’ gameplay information is processed in a transparent manner as disclosed in our privacy policy.” In this statement, the company slides quietly past the question of what happens to all of the data collected by it during the time it was active in the country. As of now, we do not know if the company will be preserving the user data or not, if so, where would it be storing the data.
Is PUBG Mobile going to make a comeback to India?
After PUBG Corporation announced that it is revoking Tencent Games’ publishing rights for PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite in India, it was presumed that this will address the Indian government’s security concerns. However, the government after that announced that it is not enough and the country is not thinking of allowing the game back into the country.
Soon after this, a new report by Hindu BusinessLine stated that the company is in talks with Reliance Jio to strike up a partnership for the game in India. The report stated that both the companies were in the final stages of negotiations. But soon after, a new report by Entrackr stating that PUBG Corporation is looking to partner with Bharti Airtel for the games to make a comeback to India.
As of now, the company has not officially stated if it is in talks with Indian companies like Airtel or Jio. However, considering the market size, we can expect the company to try each and every way to try and get back into the market.
Is PUBG Mobile Chinese?
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has been developed by the PUBG Corporation under Krafton Inc, which was earlier called Bluehole Inc. The game’s distribution license was acquired by Tencent Games for China. After acquiring the China distribution rights, Tencent Games started porting the game to mobile. After the game was ported, Tencent was given global distribution rights, considering it built up the game from scratch for mobile. However, the ownership of the game remained in the hands of the PUBG Corporation.
But, keep in mind, that the PUBG Corporation’s parent company, Krafton is now majorly owned by Tencent, as it has become the majority shareholder in the company.
Can you run PUBG Mobile in India using some trick?
Even though the games are banned in India, it is not the case in many other countries like Indonesia, the US, Australia, and more. This means that there are multiple other servers you can connect to and play the game. However, to do that you will have to utilize a VPN service to mask your IP address and use a masked IP address of the country you want to access the servers of. Turning on a VPN and connecting to the PUBG Mobile servers of another country will definitely let you play the game, however, this is not completely legal and is not recommended by us.
Additionally, utilising a VPN connection will throttle the connection speeds, thus giving you a not so apt gaming experience.
