PUBG or Players Unkown Battleground is the game that can take responsibility for really getting the whole Battle Royale genre (and even online gaming) into the mainstream. There was nothing else like it when it came out and it spread like wildfire across a lot of countries, including India. Fortnite, while popular, was nowhere even close to India. Then came the crackdown by the Indian government. Is PUBG banned in India? Yes, it still is and it looks unlikely that we are going to see PUBG back in action just yet.
Is PUBG banned in India?
The reason behind PUBG being banned in India actually had nothing to do with the app or the game itself. It was a high-profile app owned by a Chinese company and so India used it to make a statement. India and China have a long-running border dispute, not uncommon in most parts of the world but especially so in Southeast Asia. Things came to a boil last year as there were skirmishes between Chinese and Indian border forces.
Public sentiment changed with regard to China and Chinese companies and the government took that opportunity to make a very public statement and banned 188 apps, including PUBG. The reason given was for national security and concerns about data sharing back to China but the fact of the matter is that PUBG was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Is PUBG banned in India? It remains banned in India and even though there have been some reports that PUBG is going to come back in a new avatar or spin itself off away from the Chinese parent company into its own company with a European parent, nothing concrete has happened yet.
India is not going to walk its ban back so easily and so fans of PUBG (There are millions) will have to wait longer.
