After BGMI was banned by the GOI on July 28th citing the compliance failure under section 69A of the IT act, Krafton the developer and publisher of the game never made an official statement regarding the actual reason behind the ban and what the company plans to do in future to restore the game services.
Many reports have since surfaced online that suggested Krafton had a high-level meeting with government officials regarding the ban.
Since then the Indian gaming community has eagerly waited for any positive news regarding their favorite game that was banned overnight.
Recently Krafton held its Quarterly Earnings call in Singapore where the CEO, Bae Dong-Geun addressed the ban issue and said that Krafton fully respects and understands the concerns of the Indian government and the company will fully co-operate with the Indian government to unban BGMI as soon as possible.
Krafton’s CFO Bae Dong-Geun while discussing the BGMI ban said:
“We fully respect and understand the Indian government’s concern and as we have been directly running the service based on stringent data security standards and monitoring. We will closely cooperate with the authorities to find ways for the users in India to keep enjoying BGMI.”
While many players in the community are optimistic that the GOI will soon unban BGMI, some professional teams, and players doubt that will be the case. Abhijeet “Ghatak” Harishchandra, coach at Godlike Esports had recently criticized Krafton for some of the factors like wrong investments, Chinese influence, etc that led to the BGMI ban in the country. He said that the chances of BGMI coming back soon are very low.
In a letter signed by founders of Outlier Games, Story Pix, Lucid Labs, Roach Interactive, Godspeed Games, Uniplay Digital, and several other gaming firms from India had requested PM Modi to offer uniform and fair treatment to entities operating in India and explained the impact of BGMI ban and its adversity.
Gaming firms described the BGMI ban as an unfortunate event and said, “arbitrary decisions run counter to established principles and will deny opportunities to an entire generation of youth in India.”
Since the ban, several high-profile tournaments that were lined up have been postponed indefinitely and this has led to significant loss to many people involved in Esports in India. Those still involved in Esports may completely exit the scene in India which will lead to winter in gaming investments and the whole industry might never recover from this setback.
