The Indian government's decision to put an interim ban on 59 Chinese applications such as TikTok and ShareIt has led to criticism on why popular game PUBG was spared. BOOM found that PUBG is owned by a South Korean company, even though its mobile version has been developed by a well known Chinese company Tencent, according to publicly available information.
Depending on one's location, however, the mobile version of the game will display different publishers - varying between PUBG Corporation (the South Korean owner of the game) and Tencent. The game, on all other platforms - namely on the PC, XBOX, Playstation, is firmly published by PUBG Corporation.
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PlayerUnknown's Battleground - or PUBG - is a popular battle royale game which is available across platforms - on a Windows PC and on Macs, on Android, iOS, Xbox and Playstation. It has more than 50 million downloads on non-mobile platforms, and its mobile version has seen more than 100 million downloads on the Android App Store.
Is PUBG Chinese?
PUBG Corporation is the maker of PUBG as a franchise. PUBG Corporation is part of the Krafton Game Union (formerly Bluehole), which is based in Seoul and is governed by South Korean law.
The primary terms of service as present with PUBG states, "These Terms shall be interpreted and governed by the laws of the Republic of Korea." Later the terms and conditions states, "The Game [PUBG] is protected by the copyright laws of the Republic of Korea, international copyright treaties and conventions, Korean and common law trademark laws, and other laws."
These can be read here.
PUBG Corp also appears as the primary developer of the version of the game on:
- Steam (a game distribution platform for PC)
- Android Play Store in South Korea
- XBOX One
- Playstation 4
Further, in an interview with CNBC, Brendon Green, the creator of PUBG has said that Krafton Game Union is South Korean. It can be read here.
On the Indian Play Store, Tencent Games is displayed as the publisher of the game. However, the address mentioned as the contact location of the developer is Singapore, and is not in China. Tencent Games is registered with the Google Play Store with an address at International Plaza, Singapore.
The link to the Indian Play Store can be found here.
In 2017, due to content gaming restrictions on PUBG in China, PUBG Corporation gave Tencent the exclusive rights to the game - not only on mobile - within China. In May 2019, Tencent dropped PUBG Mobile within China as they failed to secure a licence to monetise the game. Instead, they have come out with a more Chinese-oriented alternative of the game, named 'Elite Force For Peace' ('Heping Jingyang'), which is described to be incredibly similar to the old PUBG.
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