PUBG Ban after Fresh Indo-China Tension Brings Out Desi Parent Memes on Twitter

The centre on Wednesday banned 118 Chinese mobile apps, including the popular game PUBG. The move comes amid heightened tension with China in Ladakh. The latest confrontation happened on the intervening night of August 29 and 30 triggered by Chinese military’s “provocative movements” on the southern bank of Pangong lake.

The Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG is a popular battle royale game, that promises the winner a highly coveted Chicken dinner. Earlier popular app TikTok among many other Chinese apps was banned in India following skirmishes with China. The apps have been banned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology as "they are engaged in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order". "This move will safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users. This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace," said a statement from the ministry.

Within less than an hour of the Centre's order to ban the gaming app, people flooded the social media as they expressed sadness over the ban, even though some say it is is a very small price to pay for nationalism. But more so, people are imagining all sorts of happy reactions from Indian parents who mus be elated after the PUBG ban. The game had a lot of young people addicted (and not just hooked) to it. Even though the gamers must be sad at the moment, it looks like a sigh of relief for many parents.

A lot of debate happened earlier over the fact if the game is Chinese. PUBG was developed by a man named Brendan Greene, who hails from Ireland. Now PUBG for desktops was developed by a South Korean gaming company named Bluehole. However, in 2017, there were reports that the game could get banned in China because it was too violent and bloody and went against the cultural values of the country. In fact, the government offered PUBG lovers a state-approved alternative of the game, Force for Peace.

This is where Chinese company Tencent stepped in. Tencent Games, which was part of Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings, offered to develop a mobile version of the game, PUBG Mobile, after changing the format a bit. Soon after the India-China face off, Indians also googled to see how much of PUBG Tencent actually owns, in an attempt to understand exactly how Chinese the game is. For those wondering, Tencent has a 10% stakehold in Bluehole.