PUBG Axed in India

 Another Nation shuts it doors.

So I talk about the proliferation of Chinese money rather regularly on this blog. Like too regularly for what should be a gaming themed nonsense blog, so that either says something worrying about me or really worrying about the industry. I'd like to think that this all extends from an apparent distaste I have towards the very concepts of 'monopolies', not only because they usually spell harm for the community, but also because I'm a sad individual who hates to see anyone else succeed too much. (Screw you, Disney! Why don't you take your share of crippling despair once and a while?) Honestly, as a consumer it's quite a different affair to be trying to scrape some enjoyment out of their entertainment products when they exist within the grip of a monopoly, because everytime something cool comes your way it immediately becomes suspect. I'm always thinking, "Okay, so this wasn't made for the consumer, but to benefit their supremacy, so in some way this new game/feature/hotfix is going to start twisting my arm for money and I've just gotta figure out when." As such, China's increasingly solid grasp on international online gaming is turning into something of a substantial turnoff for a guy like me.

And perhaps it is unfair, like they say, to equivalate the actions of the Chinese Government with that of the Chinese company Tencent when they are officially separate entities, but I think the amount of control that government exerts over Tencent is apparent for all to see. Otherwise why else would it be that the second Tencent starts to get controlling stakes in anything the product in question begins to warp to the nauseating standards of the Chinese government? Suddenly Top Gun can no longer display the Taiwanese flag, Rainbox Six Siege has a big back and forth over images of skulls in their maps and PUBG has to rebrand itself 'Game for Peace' and create a whole new Chinese-only ecosystem where defeated players get back up and wave before disappearing. (That one's just creepy) And it seems that the Indian Government are one's who take this correlation very seriously, given their distaste for China.

Now once more, this here ain't no political blog by any stretch of the imagination, but it hardly takes a seasoned political analyst to spot that India and China do not like each other. To a serious degree. (I'd even go so far as to say a worrying degree, if I wasn't afraid of coming across a little alarmist.) And in the realms of Entertainment this has already been made soberingly clear between the two giant nations. Most notable with the recent ban on Tiktok by the Indian Government which was originally supposed to be mirrored in the US before that fell apart because Tiktok is apparently immortal. That makes perhaps the biggest and most profitable social media platform of the day suddenly blocked off from 1.3 billion potential users. (I'll bet that was a hard pill to swallow.) But such is the cost of trying to aim for the two most dense ecosystems in Asia, you get either China or India; securing both is becoming increasingly unlikely. 

Recently the animosity has spread to gaming because out of the blue it seems that India has taken a swipe for the battle Royale game which started the movement all those years ago; PUBG. Now PUBG's involvement with China has been one of biggest points of contention surrounding the game given that the controlling stake of Tencent has proven so influential on the development team. As of yet the public hasn't been made of any way in which such a relationship has affected the wider international audience (At least not directly) but they went and made an entirely separate version of their game specifically to get around Chinese censors, so there's an obvious collaborative effort there somewhere. As such it's hardly a surprise that India, in their desire to swipe at Chinese international domination, would eventually settle on PUBG's door.

The effect this will have both on PUBG and other games around it is where I'm really interested in this story. Afterall, suddenly the question of where your money comes from can be in the equation for whether or not you are allowed to operate within a country, and that could prove to be a serious concern for a lot of companies going forwards. More and more often a lot of studios are beginning to accept Tencent's significant promise for revenue under the presumption that the momentary potential backlash would be vastly undercut by the profit; but losing India is really going to throw that into doubt going forward. Epic games are supported by Tencent, as are Supercell and Riot games; will potential bans be heading their way too? (I certainly don't favour Supercell's odds.)

Though it must be stated for the record, India have officially stated that the reason for this ban has nothing to do with financially attacking a potential competitor and is much more about blocking apps that are "prejudicial to the sovereignty of India, Defense of India and security of state and public order." (Whatever that means.) To be clear, this is the same argument that India and the US used to ban Tiktok, although there I'd argue there was perhaps a little more water. Tiktok was farming data from devices on which it was installed at an alarming rate (alarming= a little bit more than it's contemporaries still do) and thus it's algorithms were, and probably are, some of the best in the industry. I don't know if any concrete evidence has been uncovered to reveal that PUBG is doing anything similar but I feel like that would be the sort of revelation someone in my position would hear about. Not to call the Indian government liars at all, just to throw a little shade.

Curiously, however, it seems that India are following the US' shoes with their handling of Tiktok, in that there are talks of a recent merger between PUBG's developers and Krafton, a south Korean company, which could pave the way for an overturning of this ban. PUBG have reportedly severed ties with Tencent in the region as an act of good faith and if the gods are smiling down on them then PUBG mobile could be back up and running by early 2021. Does this mark the dawning of an age where developers will have to choose their International partners? Perhaps not just yet, as 'Game for Peace' is still up and running, so it does look like both sides are being played at the exact same time. (Although, I've heard some say that GFP is unrelated to PUBG but still linked to Tencent so consider me royally confused.)

Ultimately this is another in a long line of Video game restrictions hitting our industry with questionable intent. As a consumer I am reasonably miffed whenever anything like this comes our way, for fear of it becoming a trend, and I can only imagine what sort of effect this is having on Indian gamers who just want to play their favourite game. Censorship in general is a practise that is rarely pursed for the 'moral' or 'safety' reasons that are claimed and we as the consumers are the one's ultimately stuck paying the price after it's all said and done. That being said; screw the overbearing reach of Chinese censorship. (So I guess you could say I'm off two minds here.)