PUBG Mobile: Why banning the game in India is not the best idea

After banning 59 Chinese apps earlier, the Government of India banned 47 more apps on 27th July. Most of these applications were 'lite/cloned' versions of already banned applications.

Also, the Indian government prepared another list of over 275 applications in order to assess them for violation of national security and user privacy. One of those applications is the mobile version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, popularly known as PUBG Mobile.

As per a report by Sensor Tower, out of over 730 million downloads, 175 million installs to date are from India. This makes India's share rise to 24 percent of total downloads. It is followed by China with 16.7 percent of all downloads, while the U.S. ranks third with 6.4 percent.

In this article, we address the reasons behind the success of PUBG Mobile in India and why banning it is not a good idea.

Changing scenario in the country

Unlike PC games, mobile games do not have high requirements. They are contextualized and customized in a manner that anyone with a performance-oriented phone and a decent internet connection can simply download the application and start their gaming routine.

PUBG Mobile was released globally in March 2018 after a soft launch in China and Canada. Prior to the release, India saw an unprecedented telecom revolution that was lead by the launch of Jio. It focused on providing economical high-speed 4G internet service. By the end of FY 2017-18, Reliance had already topped the charts in digital services with over 186 million subscribers. Currently, as per a report published in January 2020, Jio has over 369 million subscribers, making it the number one telecom company in India based on user base and revenue.

The introduction of budget-oriented Jio forced other major telecom service providers to bring down their internet tariff rates. As a result, India became the country with the world's cheapest mobile data, as per a report published in March 2019. This affordability also caused India's internet penetration to reach over half a billion by the end of 2018, mostly driven by rural internet growth.

The second requirement was fulfilled by the advent of budget-oriented performance-based smartphones in the Indian market. The credit for revolutionizing the smartphone industry goes to Xiaomi, which launched its first phone - Mi 3, in India in July 2014.

In April 2015, Xiaomi decided to sell its smartphones in India through e-commerce websites. The cost of these newly introduced phones was significantly lower than their competitors at the time. Xiaomi did not want to invest in opening retail stores across India.

Over the next two years, various other brands such as Honor, Motorola, Lenovo, Realme, OnePlus, etc. followed suit and successfully sold their phones through e-commerce websites like Flipkart and Amazon. Madhav Sheth, the CEO of Realme India, remarks in one of his articles that the success of online channels and the exclusivity with one smartphone retailer meant that new entrants in India could easily cut-down channel distribution costs, and offer economical prices for high-specification phones.

The introduction of affordable smartphones by Xiaomi resulted in a massive success. By the 4th quarter of 2017, the market share of Xiaomi rose to 24 percent from a mere 3 percent in 2015. As a result, many people had access to both a decent internet and a better performing smartphone by the time the game was launched.

The right timing

The launch of PUBG Mobile coincided with the time when the 4G internet market in India stabilized, and diverse budget-oriented smartphones were available in the market. The diversity in phones and competitive pricing allowed the masses to get their hands on better performance devices. This became one of the important reasons behind the surging success of PUBG Mobile in India.

Apart from these budget and market considerations, the availability of the game for free on the App Store and Google Play Store also played a significant role in the rise of PUBG Mobile in India.

Indians, as a community, are not very fond of investing in mobile games. This statement is further supported by a recent report which states that while India is top in terms of downloads, it is surprising that it is not even in the top three countries in terms of revenue. The report concludes that even though Indians spend a lot of time playing PUBG Mobile, they don't prefer spending money on it.

Apart from these, other factors behind PUBG Mobile's success include realistic gameplay, excellent in-game communication, and easy to learn mechanics.

PUBG Mobile and its Contents: Why Banning it is not in best interests?

Cultural Identity

Now that the resources are loaded, and the game is launched, the next thing which matters to casual gamers is how well they can associate with it. PUBG Mobile ensures that the players are continuously engaged. It offers them exciting events, one after another. These events are primarily server-based and include special events for Indians during special occasions such as Holi, Diwali, Eid, etc.

The skins, which are a part of these special event packages in PUBG Mobile, also resonate with the consumers as they cater to the cultural identity of the consumers.

Feminizing the gaming community

The game also garnered massive support from female players in India. There is no doubt that both professional and casual gaming has primarily been a male-dominated regime. The underlying reason is the way these games have advertised and developed over time.

However, with the launch of games like Candy Crush Saga, Temple Run, and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, the number of female mobile gamers in India has continued to climb. While there are problems with games like Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, as they tend to stereotype the female gaming community, PUBG Mobile completely took a different trajectory.

PUBG Mobile challenged the societal perception and gendered roles at which previous games were not that successful. The introduction of female characters in the game, with better skins and cosmetics, as compared to male characters, tried to break the stereotypes of female gaming, which was previously limited to lighter games. The results were surprising. As per a report by CMR's 'Go' programme, an astonishing 95 percent of women surveyed are very active mobile gamers as compared to 86 percent men.

The report states that amongst women, PUBG Mobile (45 percent), Candy Crush (39 percent), Clash of Clans (22 percent), and word puzzles (22 percent) are the four most popular games in India. PUBG Mobile strengthened the notion that online gaming is not something that is biologically determined by gender.

Currently, there are many successful female PUBG Mobile streamers such as Pooja, Annie, Mysterious, etc. and their numbers continue to grow. More and more female gamers are coming forward to stream their live gameplay videos.

This seriously challenges the traditional notion that the battle royale genre is primarily an arena for men. While there exists a problem of verbal abuse and harassment directed against female players, and it needs to be addressed, the kind of inclusivity that the game offers in terms of gender participation is something worth cheering.

Addressing Concerns

The reason why PUBG Mobile is under the radar of the government is due to privacy concerns. However, with a recent update, PUBG Mobile developers have assured that for Indian users, the data will be stored in India. India is fourth in the list of servers maintained for storing game data apart from the US, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

This is a good assurance to Indian consumers that their data is not sent overseas and is locally stored. The permissions that PUBG Mobile requires are something ubiquitous for many applications these days. Most of the data gathered by the game is used to make the user experience better.

Another important thing worth mentioning is the current pandemic and the strict lockdowns that are followed. India had one of the strictest lockdowns in April and May, which required people to stay at home in order to contain the outbreak of the virus. While traditionally, as kids, we have been continuously scolded for playing computer/mobile-based games, but this was the first time in history that our parents loved the idea of us staying indoors.

With no travel stories to share on Facebook and no mouth-watering pictures of dishes from the nearest restaurants to post on Instagram and Snapchat, PUBG Mobile acted as one of the primary sources of entertainment for people stuck at home. For many away from their families, the game acted as a stress buster and a mode of staying connected. This is corroborated by a recent report by SEMRush, which stated that around 22 lakh people played PUBG Mobile during May, making it the most played mobile game during the lockdown. Minecraft took the second spot with over 8 lakh players.

Due to parental concerns of addiction to the game, PUBG Mobile has already taken several steps to ensure a healthy gaming environment for the kids. The developers have taken into account the privacy concerns of Indian consumers and have addressed them immediately.

Hence, it is not in the best interest to ban a game that has continuously challenged the traditional notion of gaming being a male-dominated sphere and made the gaming community much more inclusive.