- All Indian teams which were to participate in PUBG Mobile Pro League Fall Split 2020 South Asia have dropped out
- It is reported that Indian teams cannot play PMPL SA from anywhere else either.
Following the ban of PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite in India, the future of Indian players, teams, and subsequent tournaments had been in limbo. However, today AFK Gaming has confirmed via multiple reliable sources that all Indian teams have been disallowed from participating in the PUBG Mobile Pro League Fall Split 2020 South Asia. This also means that Indian teams cannot play PMPL SA regardless of which country they may be physically present in. Our sources have told us that Tencent's Director of PUBG Mobile global esports, James Yang, addressed the owners of the Indian teams via a conference call and broke the news. When the PUBG Mobile ban came out earlier this month, TSM Entity’s Ghatak tweeted out, tagging the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology requesting them to ‘take into consideration the chance of letting us play this event from a different region’.
However, even those that were planning to fly their players out to another country and participate from there can no longer do so. Tencent has not made any official announcements yet.
Indian Teams Dropping Out Of PMPL SA Fall Split 2020
The top 12 teams from the region including Orange Rock, TSM Entity, Nova GodLike, Galaxy Racer, Fnatic, Team SouL, UMumba eSports and TeamIND all directly qualified from the PMPL-SA Spring Regular Season. The top 5 teams from the PMCO 2020 Fall: India were also invited. These include TeamXSpark, FutureStation Esports, Stalwart Esports, Fintox Esports and TEAM iNSANE. All of these Indian teams have dropped out of PMPL SA Fall Split 2020.
Days after the ban the PUBG Corporation put out a statement saying that the company understands and respects the Indian Government’s concerns while also having seen the tremendous amount of support and love for the game by players in the region. The announcement says “PUBG Corporation has made the decision to no longer authorize the PUBG MOBILE franchise to Tencent Games in India. Moving forward, PUBG Corporation will take on all publishing responsibilities within the country. As the company explores ways to provide its own PUBG experience for India in the near future, it is committed to doing so by sustaining a localized and healthy gameplay environment for its fans.”
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While there have been unconfirmed reports of Reliance Jio taking over as publisher for PUBG Mobile in India, no official statement has been released by either Jio or PUBG. Indian teams dropping out of one of the regions’ biggest PUBG Mobile tournaments may be perceived as an ominous sign of things to come, however, given the size of the Indian market and how much money it makes for Tencent, it’s unlikely that they will just shut shop and leave.
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