PUBG Corp In Talks With Jio To Bring PUBG Mobile Back To India

PUBG Corp recently held talks with Jio Platforms for a deal to authorize Jio to distribute PUBG Mobile in India.

Ever since the Indian government banned PUBG Mobile for its tie with Chinese game distributor Tencent, PUBG Corp has cut off its relationship with Tencent and look for a local partner to take over the responsibility.

As stated by sources familiar with the matter, after canceling Tencent’s license, the South Korean company is now looking for a local long-term partner. The source said the talks are still in their infancy with officials from both companies in talks to structure various details of such a deal.

The Indian government has banned over 118 Chinese apps after the deadly border clash between the two countries.

PUBG Corp and Jio do have a partnership before the ban with Jio users who play PUBG Lite get rewards whenever they buy in-game merchandise. The talks happening now is to expand the scope of the deal to make it a full-fledged partnership.

Another trusted source said the matters being discussed were about localization and revenue share. Legal experts from the two companies are in discussion over the ratio of revenue, whether it’s 50:50 or a revenue guarantee from Jio based on a fixed number of players.

Apart from the revenue share, localization is another important matter mandated by the Indian government.

PUBG has commented nothing on the matter except for the assurance that the publishing responsibilities would be given to a local company.

According to a Sensor Tower report, installations from India account for a quarter of PUBG’s worldwide downloads, with over 175 million installs. Ever since its launch in 2017, the game has seen 734 million downloads from all over the world.

Experts in the industry said Jio has everything it needs to become a game publisher. The company has a deep pocket and game developers of its own, everything needed for game development.

PUBG Corp is also looking for a local partner that can help it survive various policy changes and understand the preference and need of the Indian market, which is set to be worth ₹25,000 crores by 2020 with 300 million users.

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