Two years after the massively popular mobile game Player Unknown’s Battleground: Mobile (PUBG) was banned in India, its new avatar Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), which garnered over 100 million users in the country, has also been removed from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. While the game’s publisher and developer, Krafton, has not released any official explanation, Google has said that the removal was done following government orders.
"On receipt of the order, following established process, we have notified the affected developer and have blocked access to the app that remained available on the Play Store in India," said a Google spokesperson.
What’s the matter?
Two years ago, PUBG was banned along with a long list of apps of Chinese origin to protest the Galwan clashes. These apps were deemed to be a “threat to India’s security”. PUBG’s association with the Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate Tencent, which operated the servers for the game, was assumed to be the reason for its ban. In response, Krafton released a rehashed version of PUBG specifically for Indian markets without any involvement with Tencent.
The removal of BGMI comes mostly unprompted and the reason for it is not yet clearly known.
This, however, comes roughly a month after a 16-year-old boy shot his mother after she tried to stop him from playing “online games like PUBG”. The matter was even raised in the ongoing Parliamentary session when the MPs asked if the IT Ministry was taking any action against the apps which result in crimes. The Home Ministry maintained that it was looking into the rehashed versions of the banned apps.
“There was a media report that a child has killed his mother based on PUBG that he has been playing. This is a matter of investigation by LEAs to find the reason. But, the PUBG gaming app was blocked by MeitY in the year 2020 and the PUBG game is not available in India since then,” Minister of State for Electronics & IT (MeitY) Rajeev Chandrasekhar responded.
What happens now?
It is not yet clear if the game has been removed permanently, even as those devices and users who are already logged in and have the game on their devices can still access the title without issue. Interestingly, another one of Krafton’s titles — PUBG New State — is still available on app stores.
According to TalkEsport, Krafton will meet with MeitY tomorrow regarding the issue. “We are clarifying how BGMI was removed from Google Play and will let you know once we get specific information,” a Krafton spokesperson said.
