PUBG Ban: What India’s latest digital strike means for the country’s gaming ecosystem?

On September 2, 2020, the esports industry in India witnessed a rather precedent move from the government- banning of one of the most popular gaming apps in India, PUBG, alongside 117 other Chinese apps. 

With over 175 million downloads in India, PUBG, also known as Player Unknown Battlegrounds, has been developed by a Chinese company Tencent. The reason cited for banning the same is what we Indians regard as a “digital strike” on China. 

Undertaken to ensure security, and protect the sovereignty and integrity of the country, the move was expected after an array of Chinese apps were banned previously as well. Nevertheless, it has taken the players and the audience by surprise as the game has witnessed nothing but growth in the Indian gaming market. 

As Kuldeep Kumar, Owner, Villager Esports, says, “There were doubts about PUBG being banned after the ban on TikTok, but we did think that since the impact of PUBG in the gaming ecosystem has been so huge, it might not get banned. But clearly, that was not the case.”

The Indian gaming community is in a state of shock and the shift to other games is, of course, bound to happen. But the shift is expected to be gradual as Nimish Raut, India Lead, Fnatic shares, “I think for now the community is in shock, the players are still playing the game and don’t plan to switch for now.”

The ban on PUBG might lead to a surge in demand for PC and console games, and the gaming industry is already witnessing the same by Varun Bhavnani, Director & Chief Gaming Officer, Entity Gaming Pvt. Ltd., “As a gamer you have choices, but as a professional player when you’ve put in months and years of training, you are shell shocked by the unfortunate decision. You have to respect it, adapt, and move on. There is a surge in popularity for a few PC titles lately and I am so happy that the community is finally realizing there are so many great games out there to dive into.” 

While the shock is a natural response to an announcement like this, Parth Chadha, Founder & CEO, EWar Games is of a slightly different opinion. He shares, “Indian Gamers have constantly kept evolving as the market has been shifting and growing. We do follow a vast variety of Asian and European Trend cycles while creating a unique amalgamation of our own.

We have seen a good spike in the participation around Free Fire and Call of Duty Mobile Tournaments. I guess with both being the next best options of migration for the gamers, we will continue pushing heavy tournaments in their favor. Other than that interestingly we have noticed a few PC games that have been quite popular lately – Fall Guys, Animal Crossing, Valorant with a huge content binging audience in India.”

Soham Thacker, Founder, Gamerji, is also of the opinion that in anticipation of the ban, the Indian gamers had already started to explore other options. “Although the ban of PUBG does create a void in the Indian gaming scenario, it would be wrong to say that this was not expected. The Indian gamers have already started exploring similar games like Call of Duty Mobile & Free Fire which also provide the battle royale mode experience,” he says. 

The popularity of PUBG could also be inferred from the fact that in the recent past, a temporary ban had to be put into place by several states in the country because of how highly addictive the game was for the youth. If the Prime Minister of the country mentions the name of a game as a response to a question, you know it’s popular and has got the entire nation hooked on to it.

The addictive nature of the game is what made it what it is in the country. 

Although the ban has been imposed as a part of the digital strike, what comes as collateral damage is the livelihood of the players- the ones who managed to turn the popularity of the game in their favor and make a career out of it. 

Shradha Agarwal, Co-founder, and COO, Grapes Digital agrees, “The banning of more than 100 additional apps by the Indian Government with any linkages to China, is certainly going to create unrest and affect the livelihoods of many. These apps, including PUBG, was not only a gaming platform but a subsistence. For PUBG, India was its largest market with content creators in the universe of gaming.”

Safe to say that the players were able to make good money out of playing their favorite game. As Nimish Raut further shares, “Depending on the player, his streaming profile and organization, the earnings were between 1000 to 10000 USD.”

While the actual figures cannot be revealed in the public domain, Kuldeep Kumar also added, “In the esports sector, PUBG mobile was the best career option. The salary for an average player started somewhere around 15-20k so you can imagine how much the top-tier players were able to earn.” 

The popularity of the game paved way for a plethora of tournaments that have been held and were supposed to be held in the coming future, with thousands of dollars as prize money.

The ban will massively impact the earnings and the trajectory of the career paths for many gamers, but also has a financial impact on the plethora of tournaments that were set to be organized, especially the upcoming season of PMPL. 

“PMPL was about to start but I think it will now be canceled due to the ban. The impact however is huge as teams were practicing for the same for a long time now leading to wastage of resources and financial loss. Overall, it’s a big setback for people who have already managed to make a career out of it,” said Kuldeep Kumar.

Parth Chadha understands how disappointing and trying this time would be for PUBG fanatics as he says, “PUBGM had a vast competitive scene comprising of a lot of major tournaments hosted by Tencent themselves. So for the players, it’s disheartening to see their efforts go in vain. We have been getting a lot of questions around the qualified teams around PMPL and the future for these players.” Varun Bhavnani echoed a similar opinion.

The impact of PUBG in the Indian gaming ecosystem and its consequent ban would also hamper the development of the sector as a whole, because of the implications it holds for the brands and advertisers who were steadily but cautiously looking at investing into esports. 

Shradha Agarwal talked about how the effect is bound to trickle down to marketing and advertising professionals who have been lured into this sector, “PUBG has helped the hardcore mobile gaming market in India to grow exponentially in all 3 metrics — users, usage and monetization. For the first time in India, we were seeing sizable in-app purchase revenues from a single game and the ban of PUBG amongst all the other apps will directly impact the business model for many, thereby affecting their livelihood. The ripple effect will also be felt by event organizers, marketing agencies, and influencers who were using PUBG and game streaming to optimize and monetize their livelihood surely had become a way of life and existence.”

The impact on advertising and marketing efforts will be immediate but minimal if the brands are able to modify their strategies accordingly, as per Vaibhav Odhekar, Co-Founder and COO of POKKT Mobile Ads, “In the gaming space, all the brands were largely involved in “audience buying” and not site buying (like Candy Crush). So as long as there are players and audiences actively involved in gaming, brands will continue to be happy. Now brands will look at tweaking their targeting strategy to try and capture a larger set of apps, or else surgically approach the top competitors of the likes of PUBG and other banned apps to ensure cumulative audience reach.

There have been two types of investments, 1. Specifically in the game, via product or brand placement and very few brands have used that medium. 2. The other is a completely different offline channel via esports. In our view, the 1st medium is so small that it won’t be impacted and the 2nd will surely move to other games like Freefire.”

Rajan Navani, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, JetSynthesys also thinks that the impact of the ban would only last for the short-term as he adds, “Most PUBG casual players will switch to other similar games in India so the impact should not be much there. Impact on the overall gaming industry should not be over 2% if one were to include in-app and advertising revenue combined, in the immediate short term.” 

However irrespective of how difficult the ban seems to be for the current gamers, it will lead the way for new avenues. As Soham Thacer adds, “The investments that will be affected the most will be in players/teams. It is not that easy to master a game and would be difficult for the pros to again find the same spot.” 

Talking about new avenues, it needs to be noted that this is a time when game developers in the country need to be on their toes and come up with alternatives to PUBG.

Shedding light on how this ban might lead to more employment opportunities within the esports ecosystem if new games are launched by Indian developers, Keerti Singh, VP-Growth & Co-founder, Hitwicket says, “Gaming market in India today is largely dominated by western and Chinese developers. PUBG is estimated to have generated close to $100 mn from Indian gamers – that’s the potential of the Gaming market in India. Currently, India is the no.1 country in terms of game downloads, but when it comes to revenue, a significant portion of this revenue is going outside the country. When we talk about digital goods, it is very easy for gaming companies that are settled abroad to add India to their market, there is not much additional infrastructure that they need to invest in. However, if the gaming industry in India were to be dominated by homegrown apps, you can imagine the kind of ecosystem and the employment opportunities that it could generate. Mobile gaming has gone from 0 to $70 bn in less than 15 years, which signifies the immense potential of its growth in India.”

However, Rohith Bhat, CEO, 99Games feels that India, being in the nascent stages of developing complex games still has a long way to go. He adds, “This is a great opportunity for other game developers in India but as an industry, we are still some time away from building games of the complexity of PUBG. It will take another year or two to build games of that complexity and then get the following that PUBG had.”

Interestingly, within a short period after the ban, there have been announcements of new games foraying into the market. As Parth Chadha discusses, “India is a powerhouse when it comes to game development. So yes, this pretty much is a gold rush situation for every developer and studio in India to fill a void left as quickly as possible because the community is looking for a replacement of their dear game.”

Vaibhav Odhekar also shared how it is dicey to talk about how much traction the new games would be able to capture, “There would be either adoption of some other global game in the same genre. We also expect some local apps to come up but it is too early to speak about the traction of such games. We noted that there were announcements about the launch of homegrown games within 24-36 hours of the ban.”

The ban comes into place at a time when the government of India is advocating the need to be self-reliant as a nation and also launched the Aatmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge in line with the idea of being ‘aatmanirbhar’ in all capacities. The announcement of locally-developed games like FAU-G, which is somewhere banking upon the aspect of patriotism to attract the Indian audience, is also perhaps in accordance with the same.

From a gamer’s point of view, the ban might seem like the most unfair decision and even downright brutal for some; a decision which was not well thought out, given the adverse effect it will have on the careers of many. As Akshat Rathee, Founder & Managing Director, NODWIN Gaming puts across, “I don’t know too much about a stand. But it’s a tricky subject right. As members of the esports fraternity in India, we have seen this announcement and are saddened due to the implications on the millions of players and the thousands of content creators and esports players, and other stakeholders in the ecosystem. We feel their anguish and understand their frustration. No one knows the why and the specifics. But we also believe in India, in our nation, in our leaders. And eventually, it comes down to faith and belief.”

Banning PUBG, when combined with certain government initiatives, might just be what’s needed for Indian developers to create alternative apps and for Indian gamers to indulge in them; making a more organized and structured gaming community in the country. Games like PUBG have enabled India to be out there in the international arena, and Indian games in the near future might be able to carry it forward. It won’t be surprising if PUBG is long forgotten in the coming months if its Indian alternatives perform just at par, or even better.

The power that the Indian gaming ecosystem holds right now clearly cannot be underestimated. The Indian gaming market has been able to make a substantial contribution to the revenues of the developers of PUBG since its launch. So much so that within two days of the ban in India, Tencent lost nearly $34 billion of its market value, as per the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The ban will not only enable the nation to reduce the outflow of revenue to game developers overseas but would also allow the country’s IT firms to venture into gaming, including the ones who wouldn’t have been able to make a mark for themselves yet, owing to the heavy competition they faced from games like PUBG. 

 It would now be riveting to see how quickly would the gaming ecosystem capture the sentiments attached to the beloved PUBG, irrespective of whether or not the game would come back to the country. The potential to tap in on the craze right now is immense and while some national players have already latched on to it, the Indian esports sector, on the whole, is definitely relying on how when “one door closes, another one opens.”

At a time, when players and audience alike are looking at different options to explore, the Indian game developers can come into the limelight, and fill in the gap. Because when it comes to the scope of the online gaming industry, the sky is the limit.