Garena Free Fire along with other 53 video games banned in India by MHA

The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs has issued an advisory to ban a total of 54 applications that are of Chinese origin and are allegedly obtaining information about Indian users, including sensitive data. The banned applications are different in nature - some of them are utility apps like Dual Space, while others deal with multimedia usage on smartphones. However, a lot of these applications are video games. Additionally, one of the most popular video games in India - Garena Free Fire is also a part of this list. 

Garena Free Fire is banned in India

A few days ago, the multiplayer battle-royale game Garena Free Fire - Illuminate disappeared from the online application stores. It was not available on Google Play Store, nor on the Apple App Store. While it was speculated that the situation had something to do with the recent lawsuit filed by Krafton against Garena International for copying Player Unknown Battlegrounds, some fans were anticipating a ban on the game. That is exactly what happened - Garena Free Fire has been banned by the Ministry of Home Affairs along with 53 other applications. 

For those catching up, there were two versions of the Garena Free Fire video game. The one that is banned is called Garena Free Fire - Illuminate. However, there is another version of the game called Garena Free Fire Max which is still available to download on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Additionally, Garena Free Fire Max has recently received the Users' Choice Game Award by Google Play. 

Other games that were banned along with Garena Free Fire

• Twilight Pioneers by NetEase Games
• Stick Fight: The Game Mobile by Netease Games 
• Onmyoji Chess by NetEase Games 
• Onmyoji Arena by NetEase Games 
• Extraordinary Ones by NetEase Games
• EVE Echoes by NetEase Games
• Badlanders by NetEase Games
• Astracraft by NetEase Games 
• Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade by LilithGames 
• Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite by LilithGames
• Conquer Online - MMORPG Game by Netdragon Websoft Inc

A lot of the games banned are from NetEase Games, which is a Chinese Internet Technology company founded in 1997. The company develops online PC and mobile games, email services, advertising services and more. Another game development company that occurs twice in the list is Lilith Games, which is also a Chinese mobile game development studio. However, there might be other applications from the developers online. Those who have downloaded the banned application might face some issues in using them, while new users will not be able to download the applications in the first place.