- PUBG Mobile ban in India will likely not be revoked
- The game may not come back to its violent nature
- PUBG Corporation had taken over publishing rights for the game from Tencent
PUBG Mobile was banned in India along with 118 other Chinese apps earlier this month. The immensely popular battle royale game was pulled from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store soon after the ban. PUBG Corporation has since been working with authorities in the country to bring the game back. A few days ago, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that the PUBG Mobile ban in India was “permanent for now”. A new report from Reuters does not provide any positive news as well. As per the report, India will likely not revoke the ban on PUBG Mobile despite PUBG Corp taking over publishing rights from China’s Tencent. Notably, the reason behind this seems to have little to do with PUBG Mobile being a Chinese app.
To recall, PUBG Corporation took over publishing responsibilities for PUBG Mobile from China-based Tencent Games in India. This suggested that there was a possibility for the game to come back to India with PUBG Corp at the helm. However, an unnamed source told Reuters that the new ownership structure is unlikely to change things immediately. It seems India is not ready to bring back PUBG Mobile not because its a Chinese app but because it is a violent game.
“The violent nature of the game has been the cause of many complaints from all quarters,” the source told Reuters. “That does not change with the change in ownership rights.”
A spokeswoman for PUBG Corp told Reuters that the company was closely reviewing India’s concerns and is looking to work on improving things in order to bring the game back. PUBG Corp is also reportedly in talks with Jio Platforms to bring the game back to India. As of now, it seems PUBG Mobile will not be returning to the app stores any time soon. In the meantime, Indian mobile games publisher nCore Games plans to launch the FAU:G game in India in October. The game’s announcement came soon after the PUBG ban, but the company claims FAU:G is not a PUBG clone and will not have a battle royale mode at launch.
