A few weeks ago, PUBG Mobile was banned in India. With about 40 million active users in the country, there’s no question that PUBG would want to find a way to bring back PUBG Mobile to India. While the main PUBG game is developed by a South Korean company, the mobile version was published by Chinese company Tencent Games.
The decision to partner with Tencent is not surprising since PUBG wanted to enter the Chinese market. However, that would later become the problem, particularly with India. As relations between India and China soured, the former made a decision to ban mobile apps made by the latter.
Eventually PUBG Mobile was outright banned in India, and after that PUBG ended its relationship with Tencent. By that time Tencent shut down all services to India, which you can read more about here.
It didn’t take long for the main company to finally make a decision to bring back PUBG Mobile in India. To make this happen, the company is planning to launch PUBG Mobile India, a new game that has been developed specifically for this market. In a statement, the company said that‘s it’s not just the game, as they’re also going to “create an Indian subsidiary to enhance communications and services with players.” This new Indian company is expected to hire more than 100 employees that specialize in business, esports, and game development. In addition to establishing a local office, the company will look to actively collaborate and leverage local businesses to strengthen its gaming service.
If that’s not enough, PUBG also revealed that they have “plans to make investments worth $100 million in India to cultivate the local video game, esports, entertainment, and IT industries.” Outside of the manufacturing industry, this is going to be the largest investment made by a South Korean company.
In the same statement, the company said that it’s top priority is going to be the “privacy and security of Indian player data” and to ensure that, they’re going to “conduct regular audits and verifications on the storage systems holding Indian users’ personally identifiable information to reinforce security and ensure that their data is safely managed.”
To ensure that there’s a healthy gameplay environment, the company revealed that in-game content is not only going to be enhanced, but also customized to meet local needs. Thus, different parts of PUBG Mobile are going to “be customized for Indian gamers, such as the game now being set in a virtual simulation training ground, new characters automatically starting clothed, and green hit effects to reflect the virtual nature of the game.”
There’s no question that this is good news for PUBG Mobile players in India. Hopefully there won‘t be any problems between India and South Korea getting this modified version of PUBG Mobile launched.
