PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is one the most obsessed game in the industry, giving birth to a new genre of 'Battle Royale'. PUBG Corporation has recently announced that, they "no longer authorize the PUBG MOBILE franchise to Tencent Games in India". With such a notification, it has become a news of the hour in which Indian Govt. succeeds to ban total of 118 Chinese Mobile Applications in India.
However, the news of PUBG ban was a great shock for most of the mobile gamers as this had a player base of around 33 Million out of over 50 Million downloads. Such an attractive popularity alone in one country, had served an opportunity to take over the Indian player base either to a new mobile game almost like PUBG, or provide franchise support to India.
Rumours skies around that Reliance Jio is likely to provide such support in India, as JioGames (Reliance's casual gaming app) has hit great popularity with five million downloads in just a year. Apart from this, Mukesh Ambani in a conversation with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in February 2020, has stated that,
"For many of us who don't know what gaming is, it is very hard to imagine but gaming will be bigger than music, movies and tv shows put together."
Reliance Jio's announcement of JioFiber set top box claims to support console like gaming and entertainment experience.
Congruent to these news, such are just rumours to be trusted upon as in an exclusive interview held recently with Mr. Gautam Virk, Co-Founder & COO of NODWIN GAMING stated about the popularity of e-sports in India and its growth bullying over the challenges faced in pandemic, to its evolution. So, it is not just Jio in the Limelight, however other Indian Gaming based companies are in target to win over such an opportunity.
Post the ban, an alternative to PUBG mobile has been launched in India, published by Bengaluru based nCore games: FAU-G (Fearless And United-Guards), promoted by Akshay Kumar.
Supporting PM @narendramodis AtmaNirbhar movement, proud to present an action game,Fearless And United-Guards FAU-G. Besides entertainment, players will also learn about the sacrifices of our soldiers. 20% of the net revenue generated will be donated to @BharatKeVeer Trust #FAUG pic.twitter.com/Q1HLFB5hPt
— Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) September 4, 2020
It has been a huge loss for the Chinese conglomerate Tencent Games, of $34 Billion in market cap post the news of Indian ban of Pubg Mobile. Simultaneously a great opportunity for Indian Gaming companies. "It is now time for Indian companies to become a much stronger part of the global gaming industry. We're investing significantly to grow the Indian marketshare but are also looking at capturing a larger part of the global market," said Mr. Rajan Navani, who is also the chairman of CII's India@75 Council.