MeitY’s call on Asiad participation for PUBG, AoV 

Express News Service

CHENNAI:  The participation of India’s athletes in two of the eight esports titles — PUBG (Asian Games version) and Arena of Valor (Asian Games version) — at the upcoming Asiad in Hangzhou will be decided by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the sports ministry. 

While the preliminary qualifiers of the other six medal titles (see box) are scheduled to begin on or before March 15, the Esports Federation of India (ESFI) cannot progress with the qualifiers of the two above-mentioned titles till they get clarity from the government. 

MeitY will have to rubberstamp this as both of these games were banned in India in 2020 under Section A of the IT Act. At the time, the government said apps like PUBG was a threat to India’s ‘sovereignty and integrity’. “(…) mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,” the statement, put out by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), had said in 2020.

The PUBG version that participants will play, though, isn’t going to be the original game. The technical handbook of the Asian Games says Peacekeeper Elite, the rebranded Chinese version. India isn’t the only Asian country to have banned the original game. Even China banned PUBG in 2020. Other countries to have put in place similar regulations were Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal but most of these countries have removed the new regulations. Peacekeeper Elite is a watered-down version of the original game in that the violence is toned down.

Qualifiers to be held soon

Moving on to the other six titles, ESFI hopes to start the preliminary qualifiers within the next seven days. They wanted to start by March 10 but have now pushed that back to March 15.  The qualifiers, as of this point in time, will work in two phases. 

Titles (medal events)
*Arena of Valor (Asian Games version), Dota 2, Dream Three Kingdoms 2, EA SPORTS FIFA branded soccer games, Hearthstone, League of Legends, *PUBG, (Asian Games version), Street Fighter V

Titles (demonstration)
AESF Robot Masters Powered by Migu, AESF VR Sports Powered by Migu

*Indian participation subject to government clearance