Earlier this month, the Government of India announced a ban on 118 Chinese apps including PUBG Mobile and WeChat. The news did not sit well with PUBG Corporation who owns PUBG and uses Chinese gaming conglomerate Tencent Games to publish the game on mobile platforms. Soon after the announcement, PUBG Corporation released a statement confirming that it had dropped Tencent Games as a publisher and had taken responsibilities to publish the game in India.
Unfortunately, the move was not good enough for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). In a statement to InsideSport, MeitY said the PUBG Mobile ban will not be reversed.
Their [sic] is no discussion with-in [sic] the ministry officially to revoke ban on any of the apps listed in the ban list. We will stay away from making any comment on any specific company or app.
InsideSport was further told by the Ministry"s sources that PUBG Corporation"s decision to drop Tencent Games as a publisher was not good enough to reverse the ban on the game.
PUBG Corporation, on the other hand, has been in talks with Reliance to initiate a long-term partnership to distribute PUBG Mobile in India. Unfortunately, there is no word on the possible partnership and if that will give MeitY a good enough reason to revisit the PUBG ban.