Possible ban of PUBG Mobile in India is part of the geopolitical conflict with China

For the second month in a row, the Indian government bans Chinese apps. More than 100 are blocked, another 275 may be banned. Among them is the mobile blockbuster PUBG Mobile.

How did the ban of Chinese software in India begin and why?

On June 29, India struck the first blow to the “Digital Silk Road” being built by China. The local regulator banned 59 Chinese applications, including TikTok and WeChat, on the territory of the country.

This happened after the armed conflict of the Indian and Chinese armies on the Line of actual control (de facto border of the two countries) on June 15. As a result of the skirmish, 20 people were killed on the Indian side.

Officially, the application ban was not related to the military conflict. The Indian side explained the ban by saying that the programs posed a threat to the sovereignty and integrity of the country.

This is not the end of the story with the ban of applications. Already in July, 47 more mobile programs were banned. Most of them, according to Indian media, were clones and copies of previously removed applications.

Recently, the government of India has formed a new list of software from 275 titles. They will be checked for security and privacy violations. Among the applications under consideration, according to unofficial data, was PUBG Mobile.

There are opinions that from the point of view of geopolitics, these actions cause damage to China’s large-scale foreign economic infrastructure program Belt and Road Initiative, whose software and telecommunications component is called the “Digital Silk Road“.

And these actions are a response not only to the skirmish itself, but also, in general, to China’s attempt to put pressure on India, which is now in close contact with the United States on defense issues, and also refuses to recognize the true autonomy of Tibet, which is extremely formal relative to the Celestial Empire.

Why is the potential ban of PUBG Mobile in India serious?

If for the government of India, the ban of PUBG Mobile is nothing more than a response to the aggressiveness of its northern neighbor, then for the country’s gaming audience, as well as for the local gaming market as a whole, this is a serious nuisance.

The news that the game could be banned made a fuss. PUBG Mobile is extremely popular in the country. According to Sensor Tower, it accounts for 24% of all global title downloads — 175 million (this is significantly more than in China).

The project is so popular that it was even banned earlier in some parts of the country. During the school exams in the cities of Rajkot, Surat, Bhwanagar and Gir Somnath in the spring of 2019, it was forbidden to launch the title in public places under threat of arrest.

PUBG Mobile is also one of the highest-grossing mobile games in India, where it earned $38.9 million during its operation. This is a bit relative to other gaming markets, but a huge figure for Indian, where the top 10 cash applications include even those that earn about $ 300 thousand per month.

Therefore, the ban of the game may entail both the discontent of gamers, whose only alternative will be Garena Free Fire (Fortnite is much more demanding of hardware: while expensive and powerful devices are not widespread in India), and a serious blow to PUBG Mobile, which may lose a solid part of the audience and money.

What’s next?

It is not known for sure whether the ban of PUBG Mobile will take place and was planned at all. At the same time, in India, users, according to local media, are massively scribbling requests not to “block the oxygen” to the game published by Tencent.

Many of them appeal to the fact that the game is not Chinese, but Korean, which is not quite true. From a different angle, representatives of Sensor Tower say this: the PUBG trademark really belongs to PUBG Corp., and it is part of the South Korean holding Krafton Game Union.

Anyway, Tencent, wanting to secure its product, yesterday updated the PUBG Mobile privacy policy for Indian users. Among other things, it now states that all local data will be stored on servers located in India. It was also noted that the teams located in India are engaged in supporting the game in the country.

Also on the topic:

• India: indicators and prospects of the gaming marketPUBG Mobile is now banned in several cities in India
• Why the Indian gaming market can’t catch up with the Chinese
• Is there any news?