The popular battle royale game Battlegrounds Mobile India, also known as BGMI, has been removed by Google from the Play Store in India as a result of a New Delhi court order, a year after developer Krafton released the app in response to the South Asian market’s ban on the similarly titled game PUBG. Additionally, the BGMI game has been removed from the local Apple App Store. This announcement comes at a time when the recently concluded ‘BGMI Masters Series 2022’ witnessed a record viewership with more than 100 million views on Loco.
The Android-maker verified the development promptly after the news started spreading. “On receipt of the order, following the established process, we have notified the affected developer and have blocked access to the app that remained available on the Play Store in India,” said a Google spokesperson.
Google delisted BGMI from the Play Store. As per sources, Krafton removed the game app from Apple’s App Store on Thursday evening. Although the reason behind the Indian government’s request for the tech giants to take down the game is not yet known, a similar procedure was adopted when the international version of the game, PUBG, was outlawed in India. However, the game is still playable for the ones who have already installed it and for Android users it is still available to download through APKs.