Microsoft may earn an Affiliate Commission if you purchase something through recommended links in this article Tencent Games, which was part of a Chinese company Tencent Holdings, offered to develop a mobile version of the game after changing the format.Subsequently, PUBG Mobile released in China on 9 February 2018 and worldwide on 19 March 2018, including in India.Now, South Korean company Bluehole and Chinese company Tencent both share profits from the sale of the game, as per a prerequisite licencing agreement. GAME OVER for PUBG! While fans are thoroughly disappointed with the ban as they can spend hours playing the game and now might feel at a loss on the same. Anything that goes against India's sovereignty and security needs to be addressed and that's exactly what the government has done.
While many believe that PUBG is a ‘Chinese’ game, that might not be entirely true.This question stormed the internet and social media as the gaming app – which is very popular with the Indian youth – was banned by the Government of India on Wednesday, 2 September.After banning 59 apps in June, that included TikTok, ShareIt, UC Browser and Vigo video, another 118 Chinese apps including PUBG Mobile, PUBG Lite, Baidu and WeChat have been banned by the government.Soon after the announcement, the most searched queries on the internet seemed to be questions like 'who owns PUBG' or 'which country does PUBG belong to'?The game was created and conceptualised by an Irish game developer, Brendan Greene, along with PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of Bluehole, which is a South Korean gaming company. This ban opens up tremendous opportunities for the Indian gaming ecosystem to align their businesses with the Governments Atmanirbhar Bharat strategy and also enable gaming and eSports platforms like Rooter to grow even faster from here. The stock traded 2.2 percent lower on Thursday, to snap two straight sessions of gain.So, coming back to the question: Is PUBG a Chinese app? PUBG has millions of users, especially young, in India. But, this was the desktop version of PUBG, which went on to become an instant hit with gamers.In 2017, China was on the verge of banning the game, claiming it was ‘too violent' and went against the culture of the country.This is where the Chinese company Tencent stepped in. The answer is both yes and no!Subscribe To Our Daily Newsletter And Get News Delivered Straight To Your Inbox.PUBG Ban: Here Are 5 Alternatives Multiplayer Games You Can TryYes, PUBG Ban Will Hurt China. They have banned the entry of companies and services by foreign companies and given special privileges to their homegrown brands. India has banned more than 100 additional apps with linkage to China, including popular mobile game PUBG, citing cybersecurity concerns as geopolitical tensions escalate at … PUBG MOBILE, a wildly popular online multiplayer shooting game, is among 118 Chinese apps blocked by the government Wednesday amid tension over fresh Chinese provocation in Ladakh. This ban will further fuel the growth, which will help us become a dominant player in the market. Many of the Chinese apps grew because of the protectionist policies by the Chinese government. Both the games have strong engagement on Rooter and most of their top streamers are part of our user base.That said, in the last two and a half months, Rooter has witnessed unprecedented growth by adding nearly 3 million users. Most of the users and content creators on our platform engage in games other than PUBG. But, it's now held under the unified brand of Krafton Game Union.However, the Chinese company Tencent is the second-biggest shareholder at Bluehole and has an 11.5 percent stake in the South Korean company.Now that we've established the ownership of the game and the Chinese stake in it, let's see how China is hurting post the ban.To answer this question, let's go back to how PUBG became a phenomenon, that took India by storm.Many gamers created content on YouTube and other social media platforms like PUBG game commentaries and tutorials to earn by monetising their channels with advertisements and earned millions of subscribers.PUBG Mobile Club Open (PMCO) Fall, which is one of PUBG Mobile’s biggest tournaments, saw a peak of 116,000 viewers last year.After India banned 59 Chinese apps on 29 June citing data security concerns, PUBG Mobile even introduced a new change in its privacy policy for India, to avoid facing the axe.The revised privacy policy stated that all data collected from its Indian players will be stored on local servers within the country and that the data collected will be shared with third parties like cloud services for data backup, to handle support ticketing and fraud detection.But now, if the mobile app is banned in India, which was developed by the Chinese firm, a huge user base of the app for Tencent is lost, which is sure to severely dent profits of the Chinese firm, along with South Korea's Bluehole and PUBG Corporation.On Thursday, shares of Tencent fell more than 2 percent after the PUBG ban in India.