Is PUBG a Chinese app? Here’s what you need to know about PUBG.

Ever since the advent of coronavirus, there’s been rising unrest and an anti-China sentiment globally. This sentiment was heightened because of the COVID-19 origin in China as well as their aggressive behaviour towards its neighbours.

However, this anti-China attitude gained higher momentum in India after the recent clash between India-China at the Galwan Valley, Ladakh which led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers. Here is the link if you haven’t read about the Recent Clash between India-China.

Because of this distressing outrage, Sonam Wangchuck, founding-director of the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (3 Idiots movie was inspired from him) called to boycott the Chinese products by stating, “#BoycottMadeInChina AND USE YOUR WALLET POWER!!”. Since then, many Indian citizens have taken a stance in boycotting Chinese products. Many have removed china-based apps like TikTok, SHAREit, UC Browser, Helo from their Chinese smartphones😜. This boycotting rage has now reached the gaming world where people started to debate over the famous online multiplayer game, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG.

What is PUBG?

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is an online multiplayer battle royale game developed and published by the PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of the South Korean video gaming company called Bluehole Studio. The game was designed and developed by Brendan Greene, Creative Director at PUBG who also developed ARMA 2 mod DayZ: Battle Royale.

For the unknown, here’s how PUBG gameplay works. There are three modes of play – solo, duo and squad. In the squad mode, you can team up with three other players and you can get support from your team to fight or to revive when you get knocked out (which is the usual expectation🤣). The game has four types of maps – Erangel (the classic one with all terrains), Sanhok (a dense island full of trees and hills), Vikendi (Snow forest on the Adriatic sea), and Miramar (an open desert with plain and rural areas)

In a game, 100 players (solo) or 25 teams (squads) will be taken by an aircraft to the battlefield island chosen by them without any weapons. The person/team can land at any place they want. There will be houses all over the island to collect supplies and ammunition that would help them survive. The map will start shrinking as a blue zone, which will force the players to relocate to a new safe zone circle inside the blue zone. Failure of this will lead to death.

The last person/team will be declared as the winner with the title “WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER”.

PUBG’s Journey to Popularity

PUBG was first released for Microsoft Windows via Steam’s early access beta program in March 2017, with a full release in December 2017. The game was also released by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One via its Xbox Game Preview Program that same month and was officially released in September 2018. (source – Wikipedia)

Later, due to failed attempts to enter the Chinese market, PUBG Corporation approached Tencent Holdings LTD, a Chinese multinational conglomerate to release PUBG in China and to purchase equity in the company. Tencent accepted the offer by purchasing an 11.5% stake in the Bluehole Studio, in mid-2018. However, they released an abridged version of the original game – PUBG MOBILE by LightSpeed & Quantum Studio, an internal division of the Tencent Holdings on February 9, 2018.

By 2019, the PC and console versions of the game were sold over 60 million copies, in addition to the PUBG Mobile which has crossed more than 600 million downloads. To be precise, PUBG MOBILE has over 50 million daily active users worldwide. We don’t know to what level this has gone during the COVID-19 lockdown period😜.

Is PUBG a Chinese App?

Even though the PUBG game is owned by a Korean company – Bluehole Studio, the mobile version PUBG MOBILE is developed by the Chinese company, Tencent Holdings LTD which makes it a Chinese App. Yes, we can’t deny the fact that China is getting profit from this. It is reported that the Tencent Holdings LTD earned $1.3 billion from PUBG Mobile in 2019.

Writer’s opinion

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) data for 2018,  India is importing 15.3% from China and exporting only 5.1%. In the absence of an alternative, boycotting Chinese products is going to affect India more than China.

Starting from toys, clothes, car parts, building & hardware items, gift accessories & decorations, suitcases & bags, smartphones and other electronics to mobile applications we depend on Chinese products extensively. For example, take the smartphones section – 3 out 5 of us have Chinese smartphones😐. Therefore, before we start boycotting Chinese products, we need to analyse whether we have alternatives for those products.

As for the matter of boycotting PUBG, I feel that it is totally a decision that the users have to take personally. The choice between patriotism and convenience lies in our hands for now.

Will you boycott PUBG MOBILE? Do you think our India economy can sustain and grow more by boycotting Chinese products? Let us know in the comments section. Also, follow Just A Library for more interesting news on various domains. 

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