Bengaluru: In yet another surgical strike on malicious Chinese apps, the Indian government on Wednesday banned 118 apps over national security concerns, including the immensely popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) Mobile, Baidu and couple of virtual private networks (VPNs) that allowed access to TikTok that was earlier banned.
The PUBG game, which has more than 600 million downloads and 50 million active players globally, has millions of users, especially young, in India.
According to a Psychiatrist based in Bengaluru, over 5 million people, especially teenagers are addicted to PUBG in India. It has an ability to develop a mental illness to the player and probably harm the social life.
However, it is crucial to deal with such an addiction, Psychiatrist suggested the parents should help their children to overcome the addiction.
PUBG Mobile saw a global revenue gain of $1.3 billion (roughly Rs 9,731 crore) in the first half of this year, bringing its lifetime collection to $3 billion (nearly Rs 22,457 crore) with the highest number of downloads in India which ranks at the top with 175 million installs as people stayed home owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns.
PUBG was not banned in India earlier as it is not entirely Chinese. The game has been created and managed by Bluehole which is a South Korean organisation.
After PUBG became popular, Tencent -- a Chinese conglomerate -- joined hands with Bluehole to market the product in China and started handling a large portion of its distribution. The game is distributed in India by Tencent Holdings.
The ban on PUBG came as it announced the arrival of a new gaming era with its 1.0 version, along with global mobile esports tournament PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) with a grand prize pool of $2 million (about Rs 15 crore).
