Garena is relaunching Free Fire in India, a year and a half after the popular battle royale game was banned, TechCrunch reported on August 31.
The relaunched game, known as Free Fire India, will use servers run by Yotta, a unit of India’s Hiranandani group, for cloud and data storage, Garena said. Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be the brand ambassador in the country, the company added.
Free Fire was banned in February 2022 by the Indian government along with 53 other apps linked to China. The game had over 40 million active users in India at the time, making up more than half of its global user base.
The government did not give any specific reasons as to why Free Fire or any of the other apps were banned, but it was banned under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, which includes grounds like national security. One theory floating around was that the game was sending Indian user data to servers in China. However, the company denied this allegation. The ban was also strange because Garena Free Fire MAX, a version of Free Fire with better graphics, continued to be available on Google Play Store.
Also Read: Singapore wants to know why the Indian government banned Garena Free Fire
The day following the Free Fire ban, Garena’s parent company, Sea Limited, saw its shares plunge 18% in New York, wiping off more than $16 billion from the company’s market value. This eventually led to a diplomatic intervention from Singapore, which is where Sea Limited is headquartered, but the outcome of that intervention is not clear.
Earlier this year, another popular online game made a similar comeback as well. Krafton’s Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) returned in May on a three-month trial basis after it was banned in July 2022. “We will keep a close watch on other issues of user harm, addiction, etc. in [the] next 3 months before a final decision is taken,” India’s IT Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted back then.
It is not clear if Garena was in talks with the Indian government to address their concerns and if the relaunch is on a trial basis similar to BGMI.
Free Fire India comes with a number of user safety measures such as a a three-hour gameplay limit (six hours for those above 18) and a spending limit of Rs 6,000 per day for users under the age of 18. “The game will also enable parental supervision and give ‘take a break’ reminders,” Garena informed.
The game will be available in app stores starting September 5.
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