WATCH: FAU-G not an alternative to PUBG, says Vishal Gondal of nCore Games

The online gaming community in India was abuzz with PUBG being the default game of choice for millions of Indians. But its ban in September last year created a vacuum. Coincidentally or not, serial entrepreneur Vishal Gondal, Strategic Advisor, nCore Games, announced the launch of a similar sounding made-in-India FAU-G game soon thereafter.

Patriotic fervour but low ratings

FAU-G or Fearless And United Guards launched on Republic Day this year. The very next day, FAU-G was the number one free game on Google’s PlayStore. But despite the initial excitement visible with over 5 million downloads within the first week, its ratings have started falling on PlayStore, and today rests at 3 stars.

“We look forward to the reviews because the way games work is that you release the game as Version 1, you get consumer feedback and you update it 1.1, Version 2, Version 3. So, PUBG has evolved over five years with active participation from the community. And similarly, we would expect a lot of that from the gamers in India. In fact, for the first few days, our rating was close to 4.5, but now what has really happened is a lot of our rating is people’s anger around PUBG being banned,” Vishal Gondal told Money9.

While fundamentally, FAU-G focused on the India-China tension at Galwan Valley, the expectation of the gaming community was to see a pure-play multiplayer, fully-loaded PUBG alternative. Gondal explains that therein lies the fundamental difference between developing an online game and releasing a movie.

“In the gaming world, we launch things in stages and stabilise the system. All I can tell is that we have heard everybody’s feedback and our team working very hard at it,” Gondal said in response to gamer expectations around replacing hand-to-hand combat with more guns and ammunition in the game.

Gaming Vs Gambling – Need for regulation

Online gaming in India is often confused with gambling, where real money is at stake. In many cases, money as well as life has been lost in the murky business disguised as gaming. Gondal differentiates between skill-based and luck-based games, calling for regulation for the latter.

“Government needs to recognise it separately, regulate it separately, and make sure that kids and youth are prevented from accessing such games and getting addicted to them, which cause both financial loss as well as many suicides,” he adds.

Progression to e-sports

nCore studio is developing its multi-player capabilities and gearing up to the e-sports category that promotes skill-based games. “So clearly it is in our roadmap, we have the multiplayer modes coming up…we are hoping that by end of this year, people are going to enjoy e-sports on FAU-G,” Gondal says.

FAU-G released internationally this week. It’s global reviews are awaited.