Ban Aid: Streamers Stick on While PUBGM Makers Work To Get Game Back Online in India

After two months of speculations on PUBGM’s future in India following the ban on September 2, an “official” step has been taken. The makers of PUBG, South Korea’s Krafton Incorporated, were working to get back to India with a new partnership, and sever the tie-up with the Chinese company, Tencent. 

In what is being seen as a significant step, Krafton announced it will now be working with the Microsoft-owned cloud computing service, Azure, to host a wide array of its titles. The firm also announced it has taken a step back from the partnership with Tencent in India. Krafton and its major subsidiaries, PUBG Corporation, will use Azure’s services for its multiplayer battle royale title, Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG PC and console), along with the mobile version — PUBG Mobile.

The expectation is that the new partnership would brush aside the doubts of safety and security of user data cited by the Indian government while banning the popular game. 

It took two months for Krafton to strike the deal, and end a series of random speculations including possible collaborations with Jio or Airtel to return to the Indian market. Of course, the ban had larger undertones and diplomatic power play involved. So it remains to be seen whether removing one firm for another would have any significant impact on the game’s future in India. 

Meanwhile, the PUBGM servers were officially taken down for India on October 30. Many Indian YouTubers, who were heavily reliant on PUBGM’s popularity for garnering viewers, and thereby revenue, were forced to look for alternatives. Some shifted to other games.

Newsclick spoke to many YouTubers and eSports athletes about their Plan Bs and Cs, even as a wave of optimism hit the community following the announcement of the Krafton-Azure deal. 

Big Players Leave

Many streamers stayed with the game by shifting from the banned global version to the Korean version (published directly by PUBG Corporation) since October 30. PUBGM comes in various versions -- Global (the one that was banned in India, whose makers are Tencent in China), and Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam (whose makers are PUBG Corporation). 

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Lokesh Yadav, 23, who runs the streaming channel Cyrus Gaming on YouTube, was a newbie in live streaming. He used to post PUBGM gameplay montages earlier. “It has been a ride for me. I made the shift when PUBGM had just gotten banned but I still continued playing the game because that is what got me engagement,” he said.

However, established players in the streaming world, YouTubers such as Naman ‘Mortal’ Mathur, who has over 6.2 million subscribers, and his teammates from SOUL, stopped streaming the high volume generating PUBGM, following the ban. They have joined forces with content creators, 8Bit, and have started streaming new titles under — S8UL. 

Mathur, when asked during one of his streams about whether he would shift to PUBGM, said, “I will only play PUBGM after it gets unbanned. Till that time I will stick to new titles and hope you join the S8UL family in the new journey.”

Of course, the bigger players — with subscribers running into millions, can afford to make that shift as they would still get the eyeballs regardless of what they play. Freshers in the business, with limited subscribers, can’t. 

“Wahi baat hai na, jab janta aa jaati hai, tab toh kuchh bhi khel lo. But ab nahi hai janta toh PUBGM he khel rahe hai kyuki logo ko abhi bhi pasand hai yeh game” (That’s the thing, when you have an audience, you can afford to play any game. But now that I am just starting out, I am sticking to PUBGM since the audience likes the game even though it is banned), Lokesh says.

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However, even Mathur’s streams have taken a hit. There was a time (while streaming PUBGM) when concurrent viewers on Mathur’s three-hour long streams (continuous watching in gaming parlance) used to be around 50,000. Since the ban, the viewership has dropped down to as low as 15,000 for titles which are not necessarily played by many. 

These two streamers form the two ends of the YouTube spectrum. The ones in the middle have taken a different approach to keep their content growing, and relevant among the viewers. 

A YouTuber, who runs the channel Gaming Guru, has about 818k subscribers. Guru did not shift to another title saying that he doesn’t like playing any other game. Instead he has stuck to playing the Korean version of PUBGM, like many. However, a recent video on his channel showed that he was using his global version for ‘crate opening’ (which requires spending money on purchase within the game). 

“I gave my account to my friend in Nepal, and he is the one who has done this opening and recorded it for me,” he said. Guru provided a voice-over for the video while putting it out online.  

Hope and Azure-ance! 

After diving into the world of competitive gaming at the PUBGM Club Open 2020 (PMCO 2020), Almaaz Rehman, 16, was clear that he intended to make a career in gaming. Despite the ban, he had insisted his ambitions remained the same. He has stuck to his dream, and is hoping that the PUBGM ban gets revoked, or that the game makes a comeback in a different form. 

“I hope the title comes back soon in partnership with Microsoft’s Azure. I don’t play any other game but PUBGM, and I have been practicing on the Korean version since I have my hopes high,” he said.

Rehman’s decision to wait and hope has got a lot to do with the lack of resources at his disposal. He simply can’t invest in sophisticated hardware needed for some of the PC titles which happen to be the logical step to take if one is gunning for professional gaming.

“I tried my hand on Valorant too but since I don’t have a PC strong enough to support the specifications required by Valorant to operate on a PC for longer hours. Even though my coordination is there, it’s the device that takes me down,” he added. 

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Even though the game is banned, streamers (those who want to stay put for the love of the title, besides the potential for numbers and revenue) at least for the time being, have found a way or two around it to keep the audience engaged. It is fairly obvious that the audience has been dwindling. 

With the ‘watchers’ constantly dropping, the ban seems to have jeopardized a fledgling sector which facilitated ‘atmanirbharta’. An unorganised sector, that, like many others facilitates and creates earning opportunities for youngsters in the country. Like other unorganised sectors this too is invisible and undermined by the government’s schemes cut away from self generated sources of revenue. The game’s impact is two fold. And the ban has been too. At one level it denies those playing it a platform of ‘entertainment’. On another livelihood.

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