PUBG signs a deal with Microsoft Azure to return to India

PUBGs parent company, South Korea firm, Krafton has signed a deal with Microsoft under which games, including PUBG Mobile, that are developed by Krafton or its subsidiaries will be hosted on Microsoft Azure. As part of the deal, games including PUBG Mobile that are developed by Krafton or its subsidiaries will be hosted on Microsoft Azure to "ensure personal data protection through Azure". They will also introduce a verification process to ensure players' personal information storage follows local requirements.

The latest cloud deal between Krafton and Microsoft will encompass a series of products, including the PUBG, PUBG Mobile, and PUBG Mobile Lite games. This means that all the user data from these three games will be hosted on Microsoft Azure servers, which are available in India as well. Krafton might choose to store the data of Indian users on Azure’s local servers, hence, complying with data localisation policy. This development comes shortly after last week’s report that said PUBG Corporation is talking to cloud service providers in India for PUBG Mobile data hosting.

PUBG Corporation that has developed the original game and its various versions is a subsidiary of Krafton operating under the umbrella company Bluehole in South Korea. PUBG Corporation recently snatched the publishing rights of PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite from Tencent Games in India. Prior to the ban, the data of PUBG Mobile users from India was stored on Tencent Cloud in China. The government had announced a ban on PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite in September alongside several other apps.

PUBG Corporation is also looking for a publisher in India for PUBG Mobile. It was allegedly talking to a number of Indian companies for publishing rights, including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, who could take over the operations of PUBG Mobile title in India. PUBG Corporation has even talked to Alibaba-funded Paytm for publishing rights. PUBG Mobile is likely to be relaunched in India by the end of this year, the first announcement of which was supposed to come in anytime last week. It can be treated as this Microsoft Azure deal as the first announcement towards the rejuvenation of PUBG Mobile in India. A Diwali campaign for PUBG Mobile might follow this announcement.