PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite will no longer run in India from today (October 30, 2020). The official Facebook handle of PUBG Mobile stated that they are shutting down all access and servers in India from today. The same news was also posted on PUBG Mobile’s community forum as well.
The development comes a few weeks after the Indian Government banned the massively battle royale video game over national security concerns.
Announcing the termination of services on Facebook, PUBG Mobile wrote, “Dear Fans, To comply with the interim order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology dated September 2, 2020, Tencent Games will terminate all service and access for users in India to PUBG MOBILE Nordic Map: Livik and PUBG MOBILE Lite (together, “PUBG Mobile”) on October 30, 2020. The rights to publish PUBG MOBILE in India will be returned to the owner of the PUBG intellectual property.”
Ever since the Government of Indian banned PUBG Mobile in India, it was removed from both Google Play Store and Apple iOS App Store. Those who have PUBG Mobile installed in their device have been playing the game right now.
With the PUBG Mobile is shutting its all access and servers from today, it would be quite difficult for Indian players to play the massively popular battle royale game. However, we suspect that thousands of players will use VPN or proxy to bypass the restriction.
“Protecting user data has always been a top priority and we have always complied with applicable data protection laws and regulations in India. All users’ gameplay information is processed in a transparent manner as disclosed in our privacy policy. We deeply regret this outcome, and sincerely thank you for your support and love for PUBG MOBILE in India,” Tencent wrote on the Facebook page.
Prior to PUBG Mobile, the Government had banned TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps in India, that are no longer running in the country. Apart from TikTok, some of the most popular Chinese apps which were banned in India are Shareit, WeChat, CamScanner, UC Browser.