India Bans Garena's Free Fire

General news News 02/16/2022

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Nearly five dozen applications, including Garena’s Free Fire, have been banned from India because they have a connection to China …

Techcrunch reported that Garena’s Free Fire had been banned along with fifty-three other apps, as India’s government has ordered it. The reasoning is prosaically simple: they all have links to China, and the ban is backed by the legal force of section 69A of the country’s IT law.

Many of the apps named are considered clones of over 300 apps connected to Beijing. They have been banned in India for a long time (2020), so it is fair to say that they are “not giving up”. True, Garena is not based in China, but in Singapore… but the link is there, as 18.7% of the company’s shares are held by Tencent, one of the Chinese tech giants.

A Google spokesman confirmed in a statement that the Indian government’s request would be granted. “We have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India,” the spokesperson wrote. According to Sensor Tower Data, Garena’s Free Fire and its enhanced version, Free Fire Max, have reached 238 million downloads in India, and there would be so much demand for the battle royale that the majority of 2021 installs would also be in this country…

Garena’s growth in India started after India’s governing body banned PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in September 2020. In response, Krafton, the company behind PUBG, has created an Indian version of its battle royale, which players can find under the name Battlegrounds Mobile India. By the way, a lawsuit was filed between Garena and Krafton in January, as Krafton claims that many aspects of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds were copied by the Free Fire/Free Fire Max duo…

So the situation in India is still pretty hot. Still, with their neighbour often harassing them on the border (clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers have become quite common in recent years…), it’s perhaps understandable why they’re resentful towards Beijing…

Source: Gamesindustry

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Angyal Anikó

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