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Localized re release version of banned game (PUBG mobile), Battle Grounds Mobile India almost caught sending data to China.

VirusDumb

Update (this just came in while I was writing this)

They fixed it (kind of)

https://in.ign.com/battlegrounds-mobile-india/161131/news/battlegrounds-mobile-india-china-server-fix-update-data-share-android-apk

 

Summary

 Almost year ago from now, the mobile version of the popular eSports title PUBG, was banned in India due to border issues which had caused India to not trust Chinese apps anymore, as they usually connected to Chinese servers which could be used by the Chinese government to collect Indian data. But within a few weeks rumours started spreading that there could possibly be a localised version with servers in India, and the rumours were true, 2 months, a company named Krafton came out of no where with the original PUBG mobile renamed as Battle Grounds Mobile India (BGMI) with servers hosted in India, now the game is up for Pre registration on playstore and an early access version is available after a registration process on their website, and popular tech news sites in India such as digit.in had given out there review of the game which , but what spiced things up is IGN India who used a data packet sniffer to find where the game connected as that is one of key difference between the original world wide version and the India exclusive version, and boom, it's connecting in China.

Quotes

Quote

 IGN India readers reached out on condition of anonymity stating that data sent and received by the Battlegrounds Mobile India APK are from China Mobile Communications servers in Beijing, the Tencent-run Proxima Beta in Hong Kong, as well as Microsoft Azure servers located in the US, Mumbai, and Moscow.

 

Quote

We were able to reproduce these results by installing a data packet sniffer app on our Android phone. This can tell us which servers our device communicates with. We set it to log all servers that Battlegrounds Mobile India would talk to when we play the game. Then we played an entire match. After that, we checked the logs on the packet sniffer.

 

A quick whois search for one of the servers spotted in the logs (36.152.4.34 to be precise) revealed that it was run by China Mobile Communications Corporation — a Chinese state-owned company — and the server is located in Beijing, China. What’s more is, our device data was being sent to said server. 

 

Quote

Interestingly, our source was able to obtain logs on their device regarding Battlegrounds Mobile India notifying the following servers related to Tencent as well:

 

http://astat.bugly.qcloud.com (Qcloud is a cloud computing platform run by Tencent)

http://down.anticheatexpert.com (Tencent’s anti-cheat solution)

While Krafton’s Battlegrounds Mobile India terms of service states that personal information of players would be stored and processed on servers based in India and Singapore, it also mentions that the company may “transfer your data to other countries” in order to meet “legal requirements”, perhaps giving the company a way out to do this.

 

That said, it doesn’t seem to be in line with what was earlier committed. When PUBG Mobile along with 117 other apps were banned in India, due to geo-political tensions with China, Krafton wanted to work with the government to be compliant with local laws. After that, it claimed to have cut ties with Tencent in terms of publishing the game in India and committed to invest $100 million in the country.

 

My thoughts

Well, it seems Krafton did exactly what they promised to end, they had promised the government to cut ties with tencent, but they didn't, which could result the government to sanction them for fraudulent activity. They also risked data of millions of users who had installed the early access build, now even if they fix it I don't think patriotic citizens and gamers of our country would still trust them, and the re release isn't making a big difference actually, a lot of streamers and their toxic audience had still been playing the tencent managed version using a VPN, and it won't affect them much, but still it will affect a lot of other people who wanted to enjoy the game without violating the law.

 

And as not many people have gaming PCs and console in India, the mobile version is more popular than the PC/console versions. And streamers play it on PC using emulators to gain more audience so it's also sad to see that the community is giving the illegal version (mobile version with emulator and VPN) more popularity than the legal version on the same platform (PC) they use to play the illegal version

 

 

Sources

https://in.ign.com/battlegrounds-mobile-india/161057/news/battlegrounds-mobile-india-data-china-server-android-apk-download

 

 

 

Media:

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why the frak people would play a shitty copy of a shitty lootcrate filled mobile game is beyond me. Like people, you can play Half Life 2 and greats like that.

 

 

 

 

 

There might even be great mobile games. Just play the ports of games. They are fun.

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Anything that fall under the name of 'copy/bootleg' and other Knick Knack

Is basically always bad

And is that even legal to do that?

 

01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 00110111 00110000 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01110011 01101101 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100011 01110010 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110100 01110110

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio Interface I/O LIST v2

 

 

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1 hour ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

why the frak people would play a shitty copy of a shitty lootcrate filled mobile game is beyond me. Like people, you can play Half Life 2 and greats like that.

 

 

 

 

 

There might even be great mobile games. Just play the ports of games. They are fun.

It isn't a shitty copy, it's a re release localised version of the mobile port of pubg, And people have their preferences, half life 2 was popular back in the day, and it's a whole different game so I dont get why you bring that up. The thing is that pubgm is considered a eSports title in India and it's also enjoyable, and there's a crisis of jobs in India and people are trying new ways of making money, esports and streaming are some of them and pubg mobile is the most popular multiplayer game in India, if you want to know what led to it's popularity you can go and read this thread I posted when the game was first banned.
 

 

 

TLDR= It's one of the only multiplayer games which has esport-ish competetiveness and can be played without expensive hardware like a gaming pc which most people in India can't afford.

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2 hours ago, Joduko said:

The trouble people will go through to play a bad game.

the game isn't bad the playerbase is toxic, and the country the devlopers are from want our data 

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2 hours ago, Freakwise said:

Anything that fall under the name of 'copy/bootleg' and other Knick Knack

Is basically always bad

And is that even legal to do that?

 

its not a copy or a bootleg, it's a re release.

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2 minutes ago, SeAsOn3 said:

its not a copy or a bootleg, it's a re release.

i mean, is it authorized re release?

01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 00110111 00110000 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01110011 01101101 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100011 01110010 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110100 01110110

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio Interface I/O LIST v2

 

 

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57 minutes ago, SeAsOn3 said:

It isn't a shitty copy, it's a re release localised version of the mobile port of pubg, And people have their preferences, half life 2 was popular back in the day, and it's a whole different game so I dont get why you bring that up. The thing is that pubgm is considered a eSports title in India and it's also enjoyable, and there's a crisis of jobs in India and people are trying new ways of making money, esports and streaming are some of them and pubg mobile is the most popular multiplayer game in India, if you want to know what led to it's popularity you can go and read this thread I posted when the game was first banned.
 

 

 

TLDR= It's one of the only multiplayer games which has esport-ish competetiveness and can be played without expensive hardware like a gaming pc which most people in India can't afford.

It is a rerealeased localised version of a shitty game 

 

Also, if people want a job, they should make games instead of playing them?

 

>It is considered enjoyable

How is a game with millions of cheaters and hackers enjoyable?

 

HL2 was an example. But anyway, let's put them head to head.

HL2: one of the greatest FPSs of all times, great physics, pioneering gameplay,  story is awesome, multiplayer in form of C's:source(one of the greatest multiplayer of all time) good graphics and can run on old systems. Also can be modded

PUBG: Shit FPS, no physics, rehashed gameplay, no story, multiplayer is full of hackers, PS2 graphics and cannot run on old systems. Cannot be modded.

 

 

I just believe that nobody should play PUBG. There are much better games out there, yet people will play a F2P clusterf*ck of hackers and shitty graphics.

 

But if you have fun with it, great. 

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1 hour ago, Freakwise said:

i mean, is it authorized re release?

yes

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13 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Also, if people want a job, they should make games instead of playing them?

Bro, making games is hard work, and people don't have the budget or the have the financial condition of taking loss, or time to wait, for example the devlopers of Raji (the first Indian game which launched world wide including console), had to sell their personal assets to cover up the budget of the game, and still it's a loss because the game isn't popular anymore.
 

 

19 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

>It is considered enjoyable

How is a game with millions of cheaters and hackers enjoyable?

First thing unlike the pc and console counter parts, the mobile version has really strict moderation and staff who keep an watch on players who were reported, and keeps banning them, so hackers are actually rare, and some of them get banned right after their first match

29 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

HL2 was an example. But anyway, let's put them head to head.

HL2: one of the greatest FPSs of all times, great physics, pioneering gameplay,  story is awesome, multiplayer in form of C's:source(one of the greatest multiplayer of all time) good graphics and can run on old systems. Also can be modded

PUBG: Shit FPS, no physics, rehashed gameplay, no story, multiplayer is full of hackers, PS2 graphics and cannot run on old systems. Cannot be modded.

 

No doubts half life 2 was one of the greatest games back in it's days and was popular among those who had the hardware to run it. But in those days till early 2010s many families in India did not had a pc (just go read the thread in the link). It's a multiplayer only game so modding is cheating, and you're seriously underestimating the graphics, the game on maxed out settings looks almost similar to half life 2 on high settings, it can indeed run on old systems, I've played the game on an office PC from 2008 using tencent's gameloop emulator before the ban, but majority people in India do not have old sytems, they have cheap phones which is why it's more popular

 

The only bad thing about the game is that it sends data to chinese server's for which it got banned and now fixed, and the toxic community which I hate.

 

49 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

 

I just believe that nobody should play PUBG. There are much better games out there, yet people will play a F2P clusterf*ck of hackers and shitty graphics.

 

But if you have fun with it, great. 

 

People have different taste, different opinion, different preference,etc. so it's upto them based on what they like and what they can afford.

 

I personally don't like the game's community which is really toxic, that is one of the reason which I don't have fun with it. I was just trying to correct your statements as they were wrong, underestimating and fanboy-ish

 

 

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2 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

making games is hard work,

Making 3D(more accurately six axis) is hard work. I can pump out a game with no ads and simple games like tetris, snake etc in an hour. And people would still download that.

 

2 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

for example the devlopers of Raji (the first Indian game which launched world wide including console), had to sell their personal assets to cover up the budget of the game, and still it's a loss because the game isn't popular anymore.

You really can't expect a sh*tty indie game to become the next GTA. An indie developer simply doesn't become the next id. You need great tech. Effort without tech is useless.

 

2 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

No doubts half life 2 was one of the greatest games back in it's days and was popular among those who had the hardware to run it. But in those days till early 2010s many families in India did not had a pc (just go read the thread in the link). It's a multiplayer only game so modding is cheating, and you're seriously underestimating the graphics, the game on maxed out settings looks almost similar to half life 2 on high settings, it can indeed run on old systems, I've played the game on an office PC from 2008 using tencent's gameloop emulator before the ban, but majority people in India do not have old sytems, they have cheap phones which is why it's more popular

I was wrong here You are correct

2 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

irst thing unlike the pc and console counter parts, the mobile version has really strict moderation and staff who keep an watch on players who were reported, and keeps banning them, so hackers are actually rare, and some of them get banned right after their first match

Doesn't matter. PUBG multiplayer is bad. I tried it on my phone. THe game is a typical paradise of lootboxes.

2 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

personally don't like the game's community which is really toxic, that is one of the reason which I don't have fun with it. I was just trying to correct your statements as they were wrong, underestimating and fanboy-ish

I worship John Carmack . So maybe I am a bit biased. I don't game much now-a-days, so don't take me too seriously.

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44 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Making three d is hard work. I can pump out a game with no ads and simple games like tetris, snake etc in an hour. And people would still download that.

But the money generated won't be enough to run personal expenses, + it requires some knowledge in coding which not everyone has, don't have the time for.

 

1 hour ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

You really can't expect a sh*tty indie game to become the next GTA. An indie developer simply doesn't become the next id. You need great tech. Effort without tech is useless.

Well I just gave it as an example of how costly it was even to make an indie game (ay don't call it shitty it's actually good).

 

1 hour ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Doesn't matter. PUBG multiplayer is bad. I tried it on my phone. THe game is a typical paradise of lootboxes.

Well people have different taste as I said earlier, it's a battle royale game so of course loot boxes are common, but over the time they have improved, added new game modes and fixed things, I originally played it on my phone in 2018, which wasn't a good experience, but later I reinstalled and started playing it again in 2019 on my PC, to try out the new game modes, they are really enjoyable such as the tdm mode, the zombie mode (which was a collaboration to promote resident evil 2 but was more fun and challenging than the base battle royale mode), infection mode, payload mode, to me these all kept the game fresh, so it was enjoyable but the only reason I stopped playing was the community

 

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3 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

Well I just gave it as an example of how costly it was even to make an indie game

You don't exactly make your first game into a worldwide release. The concept was not right for non indians. Also combat was really old and flaky(reminded me of Morrowind) and like what was the ending. It was so f*cking out of the blue(I bought it rn from gog)

 

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6 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

>It is considered enjoyable

How is a game with millions of cheaters and hackers enjoyable?

How does a game that is not enjoyable have millions of players?

6 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

But if you have fun with it, great. 

I mean you said it here yourself. Not everyone is going to think Half-Life 2 is a fun game or even a good game(Yeah, I know crazy). Lot's of people don't care about dated graphics or single-player story. Nobody is putting a gun up to every Indian PUGM players head telling them to play PUGM or else.

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