PUBG Corp, PUBG's parent company, is in search for an Indian partner

South Korean PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (or PUBG) maker PUBG Corp is seeking an Indian gaming company as a partner to resurrect its fortune in its largest market, Mint reported. PUBG Corp is a unit of South Korea's Bluehole Games.

This follows PUBG Corp announced that they were breaking ties with Tencent Games after both PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite were included in the list of 118 Chinese apps that were recently banned by the Indian government. These apps were banned as part of India's "broader" military, economic and political response to the June border battles.

A source familiar with the negotiations told Mint that a new license agreement with an Indian gaming company was in the works to transfer the rights to run PUBG Mobile in India.

If this agreement is signed, PUBG Corp will retain the publishing rights to the game, and the Indian company will handle the distribution.

Though this time, it is unknown whether a deal with an Indian company will help lift the government-imposed ban.

As per a senior government official who spoke to Mint, ownership of the game itself is just one concern, and the main problems are those related to the privacy of appointments and activity on the phone. After the ban, the government sent more than 70 inquiries to PUBG Corp, and the company was asked to respond within three weeks.

On Monday, PUBG Corp shared a statement announcing its decision to no longer authorize the PUBG MOBILE franchise to Tencent Games in India and mentioned that they hope to work with the Indian government to get the games working again.

Industry executives believe that there are very few companies in India that can operate a game as big as PUBG. Among them is Paytm First Games, which is already associated with Garena Freefire. Garena Freefire is one of the PUBG competition games.

There were rumours that Reliance Jio will take over the PUBG license in India, but there is no confirmation on that yet.

The PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Live ban has made Tencent one of the biggest losers in this entire chapter of the Indian government banning Chinese apps. Joining ByteDance-owned TikTok, which was banned in June this year and India was also the biggest market for TikTok, like PUBG. PUBG Mobile made more than $ 100 million in 2019 from in-app purchases in India, industry experts said.