Home Gaming BGMI may get unbanned in India if playing time limits are introduced, there’s no blood: Report

BGMI may get unbanned in India if playing time limits are introduced, there’s no blood: Report

It was banned in July 2022, and since then, it is no longer available on App Store or Play Store to download.

By Vivek Singh Chauhan -

Published On: March 20, 2023

Highlights

A media report indicates that BGMI is likely to come back to India.
The government banned the game over alleged privacy and safety concerns in July.
A number of rumours in the past have indicated the same.

After being banned for months, the popular battle royale game Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), which had 100 million users in India, might return to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in the country. Citing sources, a report by News18 said it was advised during a meeting with the Indian government to lift the ban for a limited time with certain alterations to BGMI's original version. Most likely, the plan was made after the game developer made some changes and told the government it would follow all the rules.

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What might be the new changes in BGMI?

The report mentions that the app will be unblocked from e-stores for the first three months initially, and players wouldn't be able to play the game for unlimited time in a day because there would be a time limit and restrictions on how long they could play.

Also, the company has told government officials that there won't be any blood in the game because they will change its colour. In the previous version, players could choose to change the colour of the blood from red to blue or green when it was shot, but now that will be the default setting.

Since the game was being blamed for murders and suicides by players obsessed with it, the government has asked the company for relevant changes in the game, including the server, the report said.

What triggered the BGMI ban in India?

PUBG's Indian version BGMI was banned in July 2022 by the Indian government for alleged privacy and safety concerns in the country. Earlier, a government official claimed that although the app has a number of problems, its main one was that it communicated with servers that are either directly or indirectly situated in China, highlighting a security issue for the country.

However, an RTI response revealed that the game was banned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) following requests from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), under the provision of section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Inf. union for Public) Rules, 2009.

This isn't the first time that there have been talks of BGMI's return. In December 2022, gaming content creators Pratik "Alpha Clasher" Jogiya and Sohail "Hector" Shaikh claimed that BGMI might return soon to Android platforms. However, not much clarity was provided on the matter.

It should be noted that the Indian government banned the popular PUBG, TikTok, along with 58 other Chinese apps over security concerns. BGMI was launched as an Indian version of PUBG in 2021.

Is the BGMI app Chinese?

A South Korean business called Krafton created and released BGMI. Tencent, a major Chinese gaming and technology player, owns a 13.5 per cent stake in Krafton. For those who are unaware, Tencent was PUBG Mobile's first publisher. Nevertheless, once the game was outlawed in India, Krafton acquired the publishing rights and re-released the title Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI).

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