PUBG Mobile Starts Looking for Indian Partner After Severing Ties with Tencent

Sep. 9, 2020

Everyone’s favorite battle royale mobile game, PUBG Mobile,received the ban hammeralong with 117 other Chinese apps in India earlier this month. The South Korean game developer, PUBG Corporation, has since severed ties with China’s Tencent. And as per thelatest Mint report, the company has kicked off its search for a distribution partner in India.

The developer is said to be negotiating anew licensing agreementwith an Indian gaming company. It will then transfer the rights to operate PUBG Mobile in India to a homegrown company to put the government’s security and privacy fears to rest. This will enable PUBG Mobile to completely cut ties with its Chinese developer for good.

The Korean developer has nowtaken charge of the game’s publishing rightsand only needs an Indian partner to handle distribution. PUBG Mobile already complies with the government’s directive to store private user data within the country. That said, it’s currently unknown whether PUBG Mobile being picked up by an Indian company will make the ban go away.

As we have seen with theprevious app ban, which saw popular apps likeTikTokandSHEINbeing removed from app stores, the government has now requested the PUBG Mobile developer toanswer more than 70 queries. The company has three weeks to respond to the government’s concerns.

Earlier this week, PUBG Corp said that it‘hopes to work’with the Indian government to restore the popular battle royale game in the country. A senior government official tells Mint that ownership is not the only problem at hand for PUBG Mobile. The game has been banned due to several other issues, including ‘data privacy, security, activity inside the phone, etc.‘

Now, who do you think will take over the distribution of PUBG Mobile in India? The rumor mill suggests thatReliance Jiois interested in picking up the game’s license in the country. There is currently no confirmation for the same and industry executives believe that there are not many tech giants in the country that are capable of operating a game of PUBG’s scale in India.

PUBG Mobile hasover 40 million monthly active usersin the country, making India one of the most lucrative markets for the battle royale game. The game recentlyreceived a major update, which not only brings the much-awaited new Erangel map but also graphics and other UI enhancements in tow.