PUBG Mobile Ban: How Free Fire and CODM Are Changing Gaming in India

On September 2nd the Government of India banned PUBG M in India along with a whole list of other games including Lifeafter, Cyber Hunter, Creative Destruction, etc for misusing Indian users' data. It was known that the ban on PUBG mobile might come in India ever since the first Chinese app ban was done after the tensions between India and China escalated at the borders of the two countries. Even if PUBG Mobile wasn't inherently Chinese, it was still owned by Tencent games which is part of one of the biggest Chinese MNC Tencent. Now after PUBG corporation, which is south Korean has issued a statement regarding the PUBG Mobile India ban, the Indian players of the game might see it in the future with Bluehole as the publisher instead of Tencent games.

PUBG Mobile Ban: How Free Fire is Gaining new players in India:

Garena Free Fire is a mobile battle royal that competes directly with PUBG mobile in India. Free Fire is being aggressive with their India campaign for quite some time now and it is paying off now. Since PUB G Mobile has been removed from Indian Playstore and Appstore it is Free Fire that has gained the most number of players. In a report published in Mint, the Data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower showed Free Fire has had 3.7 million downloads from September 3 to 9. That is 147% more downloads from the previous weeks. Free Fire already had a decent-sized player base in India and ever since PU BG was banned it has gained the most. A lot of its growth's credit has to be given to Garena's team in India who capitalized on the anti-china sentiment in India and launched several campaigns to woo the Indian gamers to their game.

PUBG Mobile Ban: How CODM is Gaining new players in India:

Call of Duty mobile has been gaining traction in the Indian gaming scene as well but unlike Free Fire, this is more organic. In the report that Mint published it also showed that is was CODM that had the most increase in downloads in India after PUBG was banned. Call of duty mobile was downloaded 1.4 million times between September 3 to 9th and had a 267% increase in downloads compared to previous weeks. Interestingly, it was CODM that many PU BG Mobile streamers switched to after the ban. The race is still on between Free Fire and Call of Duty Mobile for the huge player base that PUBG mobile has left behind in India.