24.05.2021

PUBG Mobile may be banned again in India. Local politicians opposed the restart of the battle royale

The Indian version of PUBG Mobile does not even have a release date yet, and local politicians are again calling for the game to be banned. The reason is the close connection of developers with Tencent and the threat to the security of India.

Officials began to express dissatisfaction a few days after the start of pre-registration in Battlegrounds Mobile India. Recall that under this title, the title should be released in India.

One of the first to indirectly talk about the need to ban battle royale was Abhishek Singhvi, a member of the Indian parliament. He accused the country’s authorities of inconsistency, pointing out that they first blocked the game, and then allowed it again — despite the fact that 15.5% of Krafton belongs to the Chinese giant Tencent.

Ninong Ering, a former Indian minister of Minority Affairs, later joined the charges. He wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of the country with a direct request to ban Battlegrounds Mobile India.

In his letter, Ehring stated that the release of the updated PUBG Mobile will seriously affect the privacy of Indian citizens. He stressed that Krafton is not even trying to fix the situation, but is just “looking for a way to circumvent or ignore local laws.”

Key arguments of the politician:

  • Almost the entire Battlegrounds Mobile India development team, including management, consists of former Tencent employees;
  • In March, Krafton invested $22.4 million in the Indian esports firm Nodwin Gaming, which closely cooperates with Tencent;
  • the link to pre-registration via Google Play says “PUBG Mobile”, not “Battlegrounds Mobile”;
  • also, Ering suggests that the new version of the battle royale will in fact be no different from the banned old one except for the name.

Krafton has not yet commented on the statements of Indian politicians.

Note that Krafton does not need to get approval from the government of India to launch Battlegrounds Mobile in the country. The fact is that the ministries involved in the ban of PUBG Mobile are not engaged in the confirmation of games. But they can ban an objectionable release if it does not comply with Indian rules and regulations.

Sources familiar with the situation told the IGN portal that there probably won’t be any problems with Battlegrounds Mobile after the release. The main thing is that Krafton follows the rules regarding the confidentiality of data of Indian citizens.

PUBG Mobile has been banned in India since September 2, 2020 due to “damage to the sovereignty and integrity of the country.” Then the authors of the game, along with the developers of another 117 Chinese applications, were accused of transferring user data to foreign servers.

Last week, Krafton confirmed that Battle Royale will return to India. The South Korean PUBG Corp should take over the operation of Battlegrounds Mobile instead of Tencent. The data will be stored on Azure, Microsoft‘s cloud service (although according to Ehring, Nodwin Gaming will handle them).

It is not yet known exactly when the title will be released in India, but it is assumed that it will happen in the second half of June.

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