Player’s Unknown Battle Ground or PUBG is an online multiplayer battle royale game which has been developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of Krafton, a South Koren video games publisher. The game was launched in the year 2017 and was initially available on PCs and gaming consoles. However, in the year 2018, Krafton collaborated with a Chinese tech company, Tencent, to develop and publish the game’s mobile version, PUBG Mobile.
PUBG is a battle royale game in which up to 100 players parachute onto a map, look for weapons and fight to eliminate each other till the last one standing. There are multiple game modes like solo, duo, squad, death match and more. PUBG had over 3 million concurrent players on Steam by 2018, while PUBG Mobile exceeded 1.3 billion downloads globally in 2021.
Ban in India
PUBG Mobile was banned in India on 2nd September 2020, along with 117 other apps having links with China. The ban was put in place by the Government of India under various provisions of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. PUBG Mobile was among the 224 Chinese apps banned by the GOI till then.
PUBG Mobile was categorised as a Chinese app because it was published in India by Tencent, a Chinese technology company. There were several reasons cited by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for banning PUBG Mobile. Primary reason was a threat to national security. According to the Ministry, the user data of the players was being surreptitiously transferred to the servers of the game located in China. Therefore, there was a real threat of the said data being mined and compiled by elements inimical to India’s sovereignty and integrity. Other reasons cited by the Ministry included the addiction of children to in-app purchases on PUBG Mobile and rising incidents of children stealing money to play PUBG.
PUBG Mobile was essentially banned as a part of the crackdown against Chinese apps in India, following the border clash between Indian and Chinese armies at Galwan in June 2020 and resulting geopolitical tensions between the two countries.
Current Status
PUBG Mobile remains banned in India. However, Krafton launched an India-specific version of the game, Battle Ground Mobile India, in May 2021. BGMI was a separate app with better data protection, local content and full compliance with Indian laws. This new version of PUBG was banned by the Government of India in July 2022.
Krafton relaunched BGMI in May 2023, promising new features and protections to allay earlier concerns. BGMI is currently active in India.
Santosh Kumar is a Professional SEO and Blogger, With the help of this blog he is trying to share top 10 lists, facts, entertainment news from India and all around the world.
