In a statement, the US tech giant said that India has ordered the game Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) to be blocked, forcing it to remove the app from the Play Store. The game’s website indicated that it had more than 100 million users in India. The block comes after India banned another Krafton title in 2020, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG).
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“Upon receiving the order, following established process, we notified the affected developer and blocked access to the app,” a Google spokesperson said. BGMI was also unavailable on Apple Inc’s App Store on Thursday afternoon in India. The reason for the ban was not immediately clear. In Seoul, a Krafton representative said the developer was talking to relevant authorities and companies to understand the exact situation regarding the suspension on the two major app stores in India. Local representatives for Apple and India’s IT ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours. A source with direct knowledge of the matter said Google received the government takedown order within the last 24 hours. India cited security risks in banning PUBG, but the move was widely seen as a consequence of deteriorating business ties with China. At the time, China’s Tencent held the rights to publish PUBG in India. The crackdown was part of New Delhi’s ban on more than 100 mobile apps of Chinese origin, following a months-long border standoff between the nuclear-armed rivals. The ban has since been expanded to cover more than 300 apps. (Reporting by Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Additional reporting by Nupur Anand and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Clarence Fernandez)
