Free Fire: Singapore buys Garena's fight and demands India's response on the Ban
Game was banned from India on Feb 14 on national security grounds
The government of Singapore bought Garena's fight and questioned India about the ban on Free Fire , owned by the technology group Sea Ltd. Sea Limited is a Singapore-based company that is the parent company of Garena, publisher of Free Fire. Singaporean politicians want to know why the game was banned in India.
It is worth remembering that, after the ban, the market value of the company that owns Free Fire listed in New York fell by US$ 16 billion in a single day . Additionally, investors fear that India could extend the suspension to Sea's recently launched e-commerce app Shopee .
The ban on Free Fire in India came as a complete shock to the mobile gaming community. The game was taken offline by the government with 53 other mobile apps.
Indian government confirms questions about the ban on Free Fire
According to Reuters , the sources, which include two Indian government officials, said Singapore asked Indian authorities why the app was banned with Chinese apps, given that Sea is based in the wealthy city-state of Singapore.
In turn, the questions raised with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India, were forwarded to the department of information technology (IT), the same that ordered the banning of the game, told the two Indian sources.
The sources, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the discussions, said they did not know how and whether the Indian government plans to respond to Singapore's concerns.
Garena comments on the ban on Free Fire in India
In her response to the ban, the Free Fire owner replied: “ We do not transfer or store any data from our Indian users in China ”, adding that it is a Singaporean company and that it complies with Indian law.
The initial ban in India of 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok , came after a border clash with China in 2020 and was expanded this month to a total of 321, with Free Fire among them.
In response to the removal of Free Fire from the Google Play Store , Google told Sea that it was following orders from the Indian government and could not disclose more.
India is the main Free Fire market
India is the main market for Free Fire and one of its most premium versions, Free Fire MAX , in number of downloads, data from analytics company SensorTower shows . But India only accounted for 2.6% of Sea's net mobile game sales in 2021.
It is worth remembering that the premium version of the game, Free Fire MAX, is now the most downloaded mobile game in India and is still available on the Google Play Store in India.
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