Battlegrounds, Why 'Boycott' in Vietnam?

A total of 48 players, 8 from each of 6 countries—Korea, China, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and Vietnam—participated and competed in this tournament.

To prevent information theft during live broadcasts of professional players' matches, a 10-minute delay in broadcast transmission has become a standard rule at tournament venues.

In battle royale genres like Battlegrounds, where 100 players compete for survival, obtaining real-time information about opponents' locations severely compromises the game's fairness. To ensure tournament fairness, a 10-minute delay in broadcast transmission is typically the standard rule.

During the tournament, two Vietnamese players were found to have been displaying the broadcast on a secondary monitor and collecting information via chat, causing a controversy.

Subsequently, all Korean representative players declared their non-participation due to the organizer's inadequate response, and the tournament ultimately ended early after sponsors withdrew. The Vietnamese players involved were permanently banned and prohibited from participating in official tournaments.

Krafton's rulebook lacked provisions for broadcast delay recommendations and prohibitions against chat information inflow, revealing immature operation.

Public opinion worsened due to delayed initial investigation results and inadequate protection for whistleblowers, and emotional conflict escalated between Korean and Vietnamese fandoms over differing views on the apology statement.

Korean players criticized the incident, stating that although cheating was clearly confirmed, action was very slow and the apology was insufficient.

Vietnamese users acknowledged the cheating itself but argued that the permanent ban on players was excessive and that there were issues with procedural fairness. As such, the conflict between gamers of both countries has intensified, leading to deteriorated communication.

The situation was ignited when 'Domixi,' a national Vietnamese streamer with 8.35 million subscribers, announced the uninstallation of Battlegrounds and refusal of future related work.

Following this, 'Windy Game,' a famous Vietnamese PC bang chain, also announced the uninstallation of Battlegrounds from 2,000 PCs. University esports clubs declared non-participation in tournaments, and negative Vietnamese language reviews on Steam surged, spreading the boycott movement across all fronts.

Unlike Korea, Vietnam has a much higher mobile game usage rate due to the faster proliferation of mobile base stations than wired internet. Therefore, the mobile version of Battlegrounds is predominantly used.

While Battlegrounds Mobile is operated by a local official service entity, the PC version is serviced via Steam without an official operator. Although issues such as Steam access blocks occur, the mobile-centric usage pattern means that this PC version-related issue is unlikely to immediately impact sales.

The Vietnamese market's contribution to Krafton's overall revenue is low, accounting for a single-digit percentage.

However, Vietnam demonstrates an overwhelming presence in the esports viewership market, with Vietnamese language broadcast viewing hours accounting for 43% of global viewing hours during the 2025 PGC (PUBG Global Championship) tournament. Another characteristic is the young demographic, with an average median viewer age of 32.

For live service games, esports viewership metrics are as important as the number of game users. Therefore, Vietnam is considered a strategically highly valuable market for Krafton in terms of securing an esports audience, rather than just revenue.

In the Chinese market, Krafton follows a unique structure of generating revenue by licensing similar games due to publishing restrictions.

In contrast, India is a key market, accounting for about 10% of Krafton's total sales, where the head of business is stationed locally and directly manages the local subsidiary. In times of worsening India-China relations, a strong localization strategy was pursued, such as switching to direct local service excluding Tencent servers.

Krafton is targeting the Indian market by actively promoting localization policies tailored to the local user environment, including partnerships with smartphone manufacturers and the launch of exclusive data plans.

BGMI (Battlegrounds Mobile India), the localized version of Battlegrounds, achieved overwhelming success in India, recording 260 million cumulative downloads.

A national-level investment agreement was signed between Indian Prime Minister Modi and Krafton's chairman, and it enjoys national popularity to the extent that public service announcements, like 'Don't play too much,' were broadcast. Unlike the Vietnam case, India successfully settled into the market through stable operations via a formal local subsidiary.

Fortnite features charming fantasy-style graphics and casual elements like double jumps, while Battlegrounds is characterized by realistic military training-like production.

In Western countries, with their long tradition of gaming, there's a strong tendency to consider games played in fixed spaces like PCs and consoles as authentic.

In contrast, in many developing Asian regions, accessibility to mobile games was crucial due to PC spec issues. The failure of 'PUBG Lite,' a low-spec PC version launched by Krafton, proves that the market has reorganized around mobile.

However, within the gaming industry, polarization is intensifying between large companies like Krafton and smaller companies that create casual games. Separately from sales figures, the actual game usage rate among young Koreans is consistently declining.

The domestic game usage rate sharply decreased from 74.4% in 2022 to 50.2% in 2025.

Editor Lee Kyung-hyuk cited his experience giving special lectures to high school students, mentioning a significant decrease in the proportion of League of Legends players compared to 10 years ago. This is interpreted as a preference among the younger generation to watch games rather than play them directly, due to increasingly complex game mechanics and high entry barriers.

This change shows that the gaming culture of the younger generation is shifting from 'playing directly' to 'consuming content.'

The Korean game industry shows a growth structure fixated on PC online and mobile MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games), strongly specialized for the Korean market.

To succeed in the global market, a localization strategy that meticulously considers the culture and interests of each country is essential. It is pointed out that if Korean-style games are adhered to without considering diversity, cultural conflicts may recur in overseas markets.