Explainer: India's PUBG ban and what it means
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After being banned in India, PUBG wants to return to the Indian market, which is why it is breaking up with its Chinese partners
After being banned in India, PUBG wants to return to the Indian market, which is why it is breaking up with its Chinese partners. After Huawei, Tencent is the next big tech company that is suffering losses. Tencent was the publisher of PUBG in India.
Now, it has been forced to surrender the rights to the game for the Indian market. This means that the original makers of the game will takeover the business in India
Player Unknown's Battlegrounds or PUBG is actually a South Korean creation. The game was created by Seoul-based PUBG Corporation, earlier known as Jinno Games.
PUBG crop is a subsidiary of video game company Bluehole. Tencent, the Chinese tech giant is the second largest shareholder of Bluehole. That's how a Chinese tech giant got the rights to PUBG. By investing in its South Korean parent, Tencent had launched the game in India.
PUBG corp will now take over from Tencent, which is the only way the company can bring back the game to India.
Two of Tencent’s major offerings have been banned by India First, India banned WeChat, the Chinese messaging app. And now, it is being kicked out of the PUBG business in India.
PUBG was the top mobile phone game in India and had the highest number of monthly active users. In the first half of this year alone, the game was downloaded more than 54 million times. Reports say it generated 2.2 million Dollars as revenue last month.
The game was launched in 2017, three years ago. PUBG has already earned three billion Dollars over all, roughly over 22 thousand crore Rupees.
India represented 24 percent of PUB’Gs lifetime downloads, a sizeable chunk of their global presence. Tencent will no longer operate the PUBG game in India.
What does it mean?
PUBG may have dumped Tencent, but the ban is still in place.
The decision to delink Tencent from PUBG is a way for the owners of the game to get around the ban in India. This de-linking, however, is limited to India. Tencent still owns a stake in the parent company of PUBG.
It can still be entitled to a share of the profits from India, and perhaps, even dictate the terms of how PUBG operates in India.
These are the questions that New Delhi would need answers to, before it lifts the ban on PUBG. India is yet to decide on the future of PUBG, but the future for Chinese tech companies looks bleak in India.