Krafton is currently in the process of launching Battlegrounds Mobile India in the country and since their flagship game, PUBG Mobile was banned in India, some speculations and reports suggested that a threat of ban on Battlegrounds Mobile India is looming on Krafton yet again. A report from IGN India draws parallels between the app package name of Battlegrounds Mobile India and PUBG Mobile and how it might affect the developers.
Battlegrounds Mobile India began its pre-registration process from today and an interesting reference to PUBG Mobile was found in the URL of the listing itself. The URL for the listing of Battlegrounds Mobile India is “https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pubg.imobile“. This link clearly contains the mention of “pubg.imobile” while Krafton is trying to advertise this game as a completely new entity.
Krafton faced some roadblocks after the announcement of PUBG Mobile India and they had to wait for few months before getting approvals and then, they came up with an entirely new title ‘Battlegrounds Mobile India’. This game is just a localized version of PUBG Mobile in India but Krafton reportedly refrained from linking it with their flagship title.
The company presumably approached influential content creators and requested them to stop mentioning PUBG Mobile in their content. The authenticity of this information was never verified as Krafton did not exclusively state it in any announcement. After all of these efforts to set a new identity for Battlegrounds Mobile India, the developers have still preferred to use PUBG Mobile in the hyperlink to the pre-registration page on Google Play Store.
IGN India cross-verified this information with some developers who stated that it is known as ‘App Package Name’ and is used to “uniquely identify” a specific app. Krafton has preferred to use this package name as it greatly affects the SEO on Google Play Store searches and ranks their game on the top.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is done to rank for specific keywords after a search query is made for it. Krafton is reportedly using the term “PUBG” to increase their search volume to rank for this keyword. This might be a big possibility as Battlegrounds Mobile India has been announced just a few days back and most of the population still knows it by PUBG Mobile India.
Overall, the reports just imply that Krafton is making abstract moves by mentioning PUBG Mobile in the pre-registration URL and yet abstaining to refer their new game by this old name. They might not be using the old name in fear of getting blocked once again but still preferred to take a bold step by mentioning PUBG Mobile in the URL.
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