India is revisiting its scrutiny on game apps with Chinese ties. The South Asian giant had in 2020, moved to curtail the proliferation of Chinese apps in its markets, following a conflict between the two countries that resulted in the death of many Indian military personnel.
The sweeping action saw several Chinese apps removed from Indian markets, where they had thrived for long.
Now, TechCrunch reports citing sources, that Google has pulled the popular battle royale game Battlegrounds Mobile India, more popularly known as BGMI, from Play Store in India after a New Delhi order.
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The decision is coming a year after developer Krafton launched the app. The BGMI game has also been delisted from Apple’s App Store in the country.
“On receipt of the order, following established process, we have notified the affected developer and have blocked access to the app that remained available on the Play Store in India,” a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch.
The report below, highlighting the swiftness of both Google and Apple in implementing the order, indicates that it follows the 2020 conflict-based trajectory.
The app was delisted by Google from the Play Store; a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that Krafton delisted the app from Apple’s App Store Thursday evening. The iPhone-maker didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A Krafton spokesperson acknowledged the delisting and said the company was seeking clarification.
The development follows a growing tension between India and China, two nuclear-armed neighboring nations that have been especially at odds since deadly skirmishes along the Himalayan border in 2020. India reacted to the move by banning hundreds of China-linked apps including PUBG and TikTok, both of which counted India as their largest overseas market by users.
Of the hundreds of apps that New Delhi banned in the country, Krafton’s PUBG was the only title that made a return — though with a completely revamped avatar.
Krafton said it had cut ties with its publishing partner Tencent and pledged to invest $100 million in India’s gaming ecosystem. Krafton — which has backed a number of Indian startups including Nodwin Gaming, Loco, Pratilipi and Kuku FM in the past one and a half years — told TechCrunch earlier this week that it was on track to deploy about $140 million in the country by next month.
The South Korean-headquartered firm said earlier this week that over 100 million users had signed up for the game in India in the past one year since launch. According to Sensor Tower, Battlegrounds Mobile India had amassed over 16.5 million monthly active users in the country.
It was unclear why the Indian government had ordered to block Battlegrounds Mobile India.
Last month, a local media report — whose authenticity has been questioned by many — claimed that a child had killed his mother under the influence of the game. The report gained wide popularity on social media and reached the nation’s parliament this month. India’s Junior IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said last week that law enforcement agencies were investigating the subject.
Indian authorities have raided the local offices of Chinese phonemakers Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo in recent months and levelled charges of tax fraud against them. China’s embassy in India criticized Indian authorities earlier this month for “frequent investigations” into the local units of the phonemakers and warned that such moves “impede the improvement of [the] business environment” in India and “chills the confidence and willingness” of other foreign nation’s businesses to invest and operate in the South Asian nation.