PUBG Mobile India’s ban by the government resulted in massive losses for both the Chinese entity Tencent and the corporation.
PUBG Mobile India was banned in September 2020 by the Government of India due to the tensions between India and China over the Galwan Valley incident. PUBG Mobile India, along with 118 Chinese apps were immediately banned by the Government of India under the Information Technology Act due to concerns over national security. The ban on PUBG Mobile India was a massive disappointment to the gaming community in the country and one felt that this was a massive blow to PUBG Corporation and to the Chinese entities in the game. The economic loss suffered by PUBG Corporation would have been immense and huge but no one actually had an estimate. Now, recently, there has been a development regarding the magnitude of the loss following the ban.
Following the action by the Government of India in September in banning PUBG Mobile in India, the estimates of the loss came in. According to an Inside Sport report, Tencent lost USD 34 billion in just two days following the ban by the Government of India. This was the second biggest dip that Tencent suffered after they lost USD 66 billion when WeChat was banned by President Donald Trump in the United States. In addition, Tencent was removed by PUBG Corporation as it sought to get back in India.
The ban on PUBG Mobile in India saw a huge chunk of the lucrative Indian market being taken away from the corporation. It had an additional blowback in the form of PUBG Mobile losing the Esports Mobile Game of the Year award to Garena Free Fire. In 2020, the Esports awards had included mobile gaming as an award category but the ongoing controversies saw PUBG Mobile losing out.
No permission given yet
PUBG Mobile India made some grand announcements in November over a potential relaunch after the ban in September. PUBG Mobile India had released teasers on social media and many speculated PUBG Mobile India was going to come back by the end of the year. PUBG Mobile India registered itself on the website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and also hired some new individuals in Krafton, the parent company of PUBG Mobile India. Krafton also tied up with Microsoft Azure for data and user protection.
However, the Government of India bluntly replied in an RTI query that PUBG Mobile India had not yet gotten permission to launch in India and that they could not give preferential treatment to one organization as it was the standard policy of a blanket ban. This has pushed PUBG Mobile India’s launch potentially to March 2021.
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