Can PUBG break partnership with Tencent to avoid ban in India?

After weeks of speculation and rumours, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, also known as PUBG, has been banned in India by the Ministry of Information & Technology in its most recent crackdown on Chinese-based mobile applications. After being able to evade a suspension in the previous two strikes, the game had a mention in the government’s latest order that targets a total of 118 apps, citing data security concerns after a fresh round of confrontation with Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh. However, the decision has turned out to be a disappointing one for a sizeable section of the Indian gaming community who spend a majority of their time engaging with the popular multiplayer game.

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While some Indian gamers are busy looking for ways to continue playing PUBG after the ban, others are taking to social media platforms requesting owners at PUBG to break their partnership with Tencent, who co-owns PUBG Mobile. Here are some tweets from PUBG fans requesting the company to break its ties with Tencent:

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Tencent is from which country?

Tencent is a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate. It is one of the biggest video game companies in the world with significant stakes in some of the largest gaming studios.

Tencent stake in PUBG

Tencent currently has 10 per cent ownership in PUBG's parent company Bluehole. It is the second-biggest stakeholder in the company.

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Can PUBG break partnership with Tencent?

While PUBG was originally developed by South Korea’s Bluehole Studio (Krafton Game Union), Chinese technology giant Tencent has made some heavy investments in the company and it partly owns the battle royale game.

It’s worth mentioning that Bluehole had only created the desktop version of the game, whereas the mobile version was jointly developed along with Tencent Games where the latter had secured the distribution rights of the video game in China and a number of other countries including India.

One cannot dismiss the fact that Tencent Games has co-developed the game and holds the co-ownership of the mobile version of PUBG. With that said, it can still separate itself from Bluehole. 

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Image credits: PUBG