With the recent development in PUBG Mobile's current situation, we have decided to compile an article regarding the possibility that the game would get removed from the ban list in India. Ever since its ban a few months ago, the whole Esports scene in India came to a halt... and a lot of people lost their income and job.
In this below post we would analyze the situation to see if PUBG Mobile removed from ban list soon or not.
Table of Contents
1 - The current state of PUBG Mobile
The game was banned in India abruptly about a month ago, in a ban wave of 118 apps that could be used as an information-gathering tool for the Chinese regime. While the developers of PUBG Mobile have tried to prove that Tencent is just an investor... and does not have any stake in developing PUBG Mobile, their attempt failed regardless. As India accounted for 25% of PUBG Mobile's global userbase - it has been a pretty big hit to Tencent and PUBG Corps.
Since then, PUBG Mobile has pulled out of all Esports operations in India to obey Indian laws - this leads to almost all pro PUBG Mobile players in the country losing their jobs. While the more famous ones like Scout or Mortal can stream other games, less famous players literally lose their source of income and have no way to replace it.
They are also banned from playing in PUBG Mobile tournaments in other countries - this leads to PUBG Mobile retrospectively banned all Indian teams from the ongoing PUBG Mobile World League. Indian Esports Organizations have to recruit teams from Pakistan or even Nepal to participate (which is a bad idea, as no Pakistani team is as good as the top tier Indian teams).
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2 - PUBG Mobile removed from the ban list soon?
According to an interview, the government actually knows that people can still play PUBG Mobile in the country if they update the game manually... as the server of the game is not blocked by ISPs yet. Technically, they could ban the game for real at any time... but it seems that PUBG Mobile's ban is not as big a priority as initially thought. Because the government does not apply extreme methods - the game could definitely be unbanned.
Since then, PUBG Corps has tried its hardest to get the game unbanned in the country. They cut all development ties to Tencent and move all developments of PUBG Mobile back to the main team. Recently, based on a job posting, looks like they are going to establish an Indian branch for PUBG Mobile, with an Indian CEO. This would be a super big step - after this, PUBG Mobile India could be considered to be an Indian-made game and no data would be leaked to Tencent and China.
The situation between China and India has cooled down a little - this might also help in the unbanning process.
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3 - How to update PUBG Mobile without the Play Store
Since the ban, PUBG Mobile has been banned from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in India. While Indian players are not able to update the game through these two sources, Android players can still play the game by downloading the updates manually and install them.
There are two ways to download and update PUBG Mobile currently - through the game's official site or 3rd party sites like Tap Tap or APK Pure.
Download PUBG Mobile using the official website
PUBG Mobile's devs definitely know that the game is not fully banned from India yet - they added the "Download APK" button on the game's official site right after the ban. To download the game through the official site, follow these steps:
- Open PUBG Mobile's official Website (If you are playing the Lite version, use this link instead)
- Click on the "APK download" button.
- Confirm the download on your browser. After the download finish, run the file.
- Follow the steps that appeared to install the game.
If your device does not allow installing from "unknown sources", you must enable the related option in Settings. You can log in as usual after the installation is completed. This is not the full game, of course - you need to let it update for a little bit more afterward.
Download PUBG Mobile using Tap Tap or APK Pure
Just browse for "PUBG Mobile" on the Tap Tap or APK Pure's home page. You might have to download their respective apps to install the game. Other versions of PUBG Mobile, from foreign to hacked are also on these stores as well.
Interested in more of our articles related to PUBG Mobile? Please check out this post to find out more about the new "Paramo map" in PUBG.