Krafton working closely with Indian government to bring back BGMI

Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) was recently pulled out from Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Since then, the game developer Krafton has been constantly trying to work and cooperate with Indian authorities to lift the soft ban and bring back the battle royale game BGMI back to the Play Store. The PUBG Mobile's Indian version is not available for download in India right now.

In the company's quarterly earnings conference call Krafton's CFO Bae Dong-geun said that the company respects and understands the government's concern and is working towards resolving all issues at the earliest. "We fully respect and understand the Indian government's concern and as we have been directly running the service based on stringent data security standards and monitoring. We will closely cooperate with the authorities to find ways for the users in India to keep enjoying BGMI." Neither the game developer nor the Indian government has revealed the reason behind the soft ban yet.

Dong-geun also highlighted, "in the second quarter, we broadened the user base through own and offline collaborations in the local market, and expanded monetized content offerings, providing a battle royale experience unique to BGMI."

While Krafton is working towards bringing the battle royale game back to the country as early as possible, gaming companies are also urging the government to lift the ban and be 'fair'. Several gaming companies recently wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting 'fair treatment' to foster the growing esports in the country.

To recall, the battle royale game was removed from Google Play Store and Apple App Store on July 28 reportedly because the government feared it was sending user data to China. This is the same reason why PUBG Mobile and hundreds of Chinese apps were banned in the country back in the year 2020. The BGMI game is blocked under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Krafton, in its official blog, claims that user data is stored in services located in India and Singapore and not China.

It should be noted that currently BGMI is just blocked in India and not banned. So, there are chances that the game might head back to the play store soon, but that will happen only if Krafton is able to fulfill the requirements of the Indian government.