PUBG Mobile has been removed from the App Store and Google Play Store in India. The app was banned on Wednesday evening on an order by the Ministry of Information and Technology, which also banned 117 other popular apps from China, stating that these apps violated the privacy of users and stored their data outside India.
The government gave notice to Apple and Google to remove all 118 apps, and asked ISPs and telecom companies to help enforce the ban as well. The famous gaming app on the list, PUBG Mobile, has already been removed from the stores and can’t be downloaded, although the app is still working fine for the moment. This means that if you have PUBG Mobile installed on your phone, you can keep using it, for now, but if you remove it for any reason, you will not be able to get it back.
PUBG Mobile was entering into their “New Era” on 8th September and players from India won’t be able to join this big change. Their big update was going to enhance the gaming experience for its entire player base but this time, a big chunk of players who belong to India are bound to miss this event.
PUBG Mobile tried to skip this ban for so long by implementing various changes in their game. The game added an age restriction menu earlier in this year, due to which players who opted a below-18 option got frequent time pauses ranging from few minutes to several hours. For any player that opted for above 18 option, it gave an alert to take a break after every two hours spent ingame.
Along with this small change, the company made a change in the game’s privacy policy and made various changes that highlighted the transparency of game’s data storing and utilisation process. The policy expressed an important change that the player data was saved locally in India and after request, even the user can opt to delete data.
PUBG Mobile was a leading esports title in India. The tournaments kickstarted with Campus Championship back in early 2019 and from that time, multiple tournaments were conducted throughout the last year giving away lakhs of rupees as prize money. The most recent title with big prize pool were PMIS and PMCO India.
With this ban in place, the huge player base in India may be disappointed by the government’s decision. PUBG Mobile also gave birth to prominent streamers from Dynamo to Soul Mortal who became a household name in India due to this game. The entirety of PUBG Mobile ecosystem and hundreds of players competing professionally in the competitive scenario is affected by this ban. Not only its players, but the company itself has a big market in India and they can soon be seen taking actions to get this app unbanned in India.
