Garena Seeks Localising Its India Operations Ahead Of Free Fire Launch

Singapore-based gaming major Garena is seeking to localise its India operations ahead of Free Fire’s launch in the country. The new server will be installed in Yotta Data Services’ Navi Mumbai premises, ET reported.

“Yotta is working with Garena’s HQ (headquarter) team on testing the server, which is showing high throughput required for handling streaming workloads with least redundancy,” the report said, citing sources.

However, the company is reportedly working on testing the performance metrics before the game goes to market as such games may put players at stake. Thus, the company is working on making it devoid of any technical glitches. 

As per Garena’s confirmation to the report, Free Fire, for India, will feature an end-to-end localised infrastructure tailored to meet the needs and requirements of the authorities and our stakeholders in the country. 

The return of Free Fire to the country was announced last year. After the government banned the game on grounds of security concerns, the company said that it was planning localisation of the server and making it exclusive in India. According to the statement, Indian users would be allowed download access from September onwards.

According to the company, it collaborated with Yotta, a Hiranandani Group company, for the localisation as it offered a local cloud hosting and storage infrastructure to the game. 

However, later in the year, the company announced a delay in the launch. “In addition to refining the gameplay, we are taking some time to fully complete our localisation of the Free Fire India experience,” the company said in a statement.

The Indian government banned Garena Free Fire in 2022 along with 53 other apps, due to security concerns. However, Garena continued its operations in India by providing a premium version of the game, Free Fire Max, which was not banned by the Centre.

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