Just days after Tencent Games shut down PUBG Mobile servers in India, a new report says that the game is coming to the country, and that a Diwali campaign may bring it back.
HIGHLIGHTS THROUGH
In India, PUBG Mobile may be relaunched by the end of 2020.
Before launch, PUBG Corporation is likely planning to instal Indian servers for the game.
Before the launch, it is possible that PUBG Mobile may see a Diwali campaign.
PUBG Mobile may be back in India soon, a new report says. The report comes days after Tencent Games put the final nail in the PUBG Mobile coffin by suspending servers from India. While the Tencent move in India made the PUBG Mobile ban, it also offered closure to the entire saga so that in India the game can be rebooted.
The talk about rebooting the game and returning PUBG Mobile to India has been going on for a while. Now that Tencent is out of the picture, it involves finding a new game distributor. A Korean company that created PUBG and then licenced the distribution of PUBG Mobile to Tencent, which is a China-based company, holds the original rights to the game. Now, this Korean company is exploring ways to return PUBG to India.
A TechCrunch report notes that the PUBG Mobile relaunch preparations in India have already started and that a Diwali campaign to popularise the game could soon take place. The report also states that the owner of PUBG IP is currently looking to set up India-specific servers to take care of the government’s concern about the data and privacy of users in India.
Back in September, along with a host of other Chinese apps, the Indian government banned PUBG Mobile, citing security issues. While this led to the game being booted from the Play Store and iOS App Store, after Tencent Games switched off its India servers, it was only at the end of October when the game was finally shut down in India.
At the same time, Tencent announced that it was giving its original South Korea-based creator back its publishing rights for PUBG Mobile for India.
That marked the final farewell to the popular PUBG Mobile bid by a large fraction of India’s gamer community. According to the survey firm SensorTower, India was one of the top-grossing markets for PUBG Mobile, having more than 175 million installations, which is 24 percent of the total global installations. Last year, according to Entrackr, PUBG Mobile was raking in a whopping Rs 50 crore per month from India.
While good news for Indian gamers and PUBG Corporation is the latest report, it casts a shadow on the future of several indigenous games on the verge of their official entry into the gaming market in India. FAU-G is one such candidate, which is being developed by nCore Games, which is funded by Vishal Gondal of Goqii. Although the game is not trying to replace PUBG Mobile, but to create its own space, FAU-G manufacturers have said it is more or less based on the same first-person shooter gameplay. A recent teaser showed Indian soldiers’ avatars dropping from the sky to fight off intruders with guns, including weapons.
