PUBG Mobile players and streamers mourn India’s ban on the Tencent smartphone game amid tensions with China

When India banned TikTok in June, some PUBG Mobile players experienced a sense of schadenfreude. The blockbuster smartphone game, despite being published by Chinese tech titan Tencent, was spared from the original list. But gamers have now run out of luck.

Late on Wednesday, India issued a sweeping ban on PUBG Mobile, PUBG Mobile Lite and 116 additional apps. The government’s move riled gamers and streamers who rushed to the internet to discuss a future without their favourite title.

“We don’t know what will happen next,” said Naman Mathur, better known by his online handle MortaL, in a video Wednesday night titled “Lets [sic] Calm down and talk”.

Since 2018, the 24-year-old YouTuber has been regularly streaming himself playing PUBG Mobile, attracting more than a million views on average for each video. He recently celebrated a new milestone: his YouTube channel hit 6 million subscribers last month.

“It’s not about PUBG Mobile here. It’s about everything. It’s about how we all stay together,” he said, adding that he still supports the government ban because of the “safety of the country”.

In a statement, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the ban is intended to protect the safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace, citing complaints from various sources about the misuse of some mobile apps. The restrictions follow rising tensions between India and China after a deadly border clash in May.

Tencent declined to comment on Thursday.

Some Indian netizens lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, suggesting his popularity is taking a hit among young citizens for banning the beloved game.

But many others shared memes of parents cheering the decision and students who said they could finally focus on schoolwork.

This isn’t the first time that PUBG Mobile, a battle royale shooting game, has run into trouble in India. Last year, some cities briefly banned the app purportedly to protect children from its depiction of violence and game addiction. The police were reportedly tasked with stopping people caught playing the game on the streets.

The game, along with the Chinese version called Game for Peace, had around 175 million lifetime installs in India as of early July, research firm Sensor Tower said. With the latest national ban, PUBG Mobile is expected to vanish from app stores in India. Many Chinese apps that were on the initial ban list have already been pulled from Apple’s and Google’s stores.

Users who already have PUBG Mobile installed on their phones also aren’t immune. After Tencent’s WeChat was banned, users in India said they were either logged out of the app or had trouble using some app features. TikTok, owned by ByteDance, voluntarily blocked users in India from viewing any videos. A VPN alone did not help everyone.

The Indian hobbyist blog PUBG Gaming has also advised gamers against using a VPN because it may violate the game’s prohibition on third party applications, citing a customer representative.

PUBG, the battle royale pioneer

The ban comes days ahead of an anticipated update to PUBG Mobile. A revamped Erangel, the virtual island where players compete, is set to arrive next week.

“Me: Waiting for Erangel 2.0. Government: Headshot through the leaves,” one person joked in a comment on YouTube, referring to a tactic in the game where a player shoots at a rival while hiding behind vegetation.

For now, hardcore PUBG fans in India can still play PlayerUnknown‘s Battlegrounds, the original game that PUBG Mobile is based on. Developed and published by South Korean studio Bluehole, the game is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Others say they’re prepared to switch to other games, such as Tencent’s Call of Duty: Mobile, which remains available in India.