Tencent are set to return the publishing rights for pubg mobile in India to the original owners, BlueHole from October 30, 2020.
Due to the ongoing political unrest between India and China, the ministry of electronics and information technology issued an interim order banning more than 100 apps that is owned or developed by organisations with a Chinese background or ties to the country, citing data privacy and security issues.
Hence, the Indian PUBG Mobile scene has been in a limbo, with players not even able to compete in PMPL.
Tencent have now announced that they are ceasing all operations related to pubg mobile in India from October 30, which would mean users in india will no longer be able to log into it and play the game, even though it might be already installed in their devices.
It will be intriguing to see how all these updates map up on the road to reinstating the PUBG mobile scene in india.
PUBG Krafton Merger
PUBG Mobile can potentially get unbanned in the country looking at the developments taking place with PUBG Corporation. Recently, Krafton Inc merged with PUBG Corp. and the entirety of this game developing studio was acquired by Krafton. These moves may not directly imply anything that can be related to PUBG Mobile but there are some indicators that can hints towards a possibility of PUBG unban.
Since the ban, many leads have pointed towards a different possibility about the future of PUBG Mobile but this time, the Tencent shutdown in India is a huge breakthrough that can help to speculate the future of the game in India. Tencent recently closed down their PUBG Mobile operations in India and this could mean that a big change is coming.
In the same statement, PUBG Corp. also indicated that they have assumed the full control of publishing rights of their title in India and will work in “exploring different ways to engage its community in India through various region-based activities, including esports and community events.
This includes the Korean version of PUBG Mobile and if these changes are applied, the major data hosting and user privacy issue that led to PUBG Mobile ban in India could be solved.
This may not directly implicate anything about the future of PUBG Mobile in India but if these changes are applied and a local counterpart of PUBG Mobile is made specifically for the Indian region, the game just might get unbanned in India. This is just a speculative approach on where the ban is leading in the country and with Tencent out of the picture, some potential developments might be coming in the future.
