The police team of Bhoiwada, Maharashtra, confirmed that a 14-year-old boy killed himself on February 13, 2022 because his family did not allow him to “complete a challenge on the Garena Free Fire game,” as per a report by news agency ANI. This incident happened a day before the Indian government had banned the Garena Free Fire-Illuminate game in India on February 14, 2022.
Garena Free Fire-Illuminate became a popular game after the government had previously banned PUBG Mobile in the country.
Can you still play Garena Free Fire after the government banned the game in India?
While the incident took place before the ban on Garena Free Fire was announced by the government, what’s interesting is that people who have already downloaded the game and have it on their smartphones can still continue to play it.
There are two versions of the game Garena Free Fire-Illuminate and Garena Free Fire Max. While Garena Free Fire and its enhanced version Garena Free Fire Max remain banned on the Apple App Store, the Max version is available to download on Google Play and users can still play the game on their smartphones. The game was also available on Samsung Galaxy Store which was later taken down.
Even if users are not able to play Garena Free Fire-Illuminate they can easily play the better version of the game– Free Fire Max.
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What is Garena Free Fire?
To put it simply, Garena Free Fire is a battle royale-style mobile game where 50 players compete against each other in a death-match. Players are thrown out of a plane without any weapons, and to ensure their survival, they have to kill other players. There are weapons all across the map, and you take your opponent’s artillery after killing them.
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In normal mode, the game can go on for as long as there’s only one survivor. Garena also gained popularity among fans for interacting with them daily. The company offered daily redeem codes that deliver premium rewards to give them an edge in games.
Not only in India but the Garena Free Fire also remains a top battle royale mobile game in the US. App growth tracker Sensor Tower claimed that Garena Free Fire overtook PUBG Mobile from Tencent in terms of player spending in the US in Q1 2021. Additionally, the action title clocked one billion downloads on Google Play in January 2022 – becoming the first “mobile battle royale game to achieve this milestone”.
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Additionally, the ban on Garena in India comes a month after a lawsuit by PUBG maker Krafton became public. Krafton claimed that Garena copies elements of PUBG and should be banned from Google Play and App Store. It also sued Google and Apple for not taking action against Garena.
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