Year Ender 2022 Free Fire Esports – From Ban in India to dropping viewership in FFWS, Things happened in 2022: What an eventful year we have had, especially in terms of the rapid growth of eSports. Garena Free Fire, one of the popular Battle Royale titles, had experienced a topsy-turvy year, from getting banned in India to finishing third at the eSports Awards. The eSports section of the same also faced similar backlash, experiencing a major drop in viewership in the recently concluded FFWS. Let’s take look at the things that happened over the last twelve months. Follow InsideSport.IN for more esports and Gaming latest updates.
Free Fire Ban In India
In February 2022, Garena suffered a massive blow when the Indian Government ousted the title from all virtual stores. Free Fire failed to make a comeback as of now while the max version of the title continued to be available. Obvious changes were made to official social media handles, however, clarification is still missing from the officials’ end whether the original title would return or not.
Year Ender 2022 Free Fire Esports – Things happened in 2022
Here is the set of events that went on to happen.
- Google Play Store removed Garena Free Fire – 12 February 2022
- Garena officially confirms the ban after 48 hours. GOI ousted the title along with 4 other applications.
- Garena postponed FFIC for an indefinite time – 17 February
- Garena shifts India operations to Free Fire MAX. Usernames of all the social media handles had also been changed – 23 February
- Garena announced that all the Nepali players will be shifted to the Bangladesh Servers from the India servers.
- Free Fire Esports India channel hacked – 6 April
- Garena confirmed that there will be no teams representing India in the FFWS Sentosa. – 17 February
- Garena even scheduled a Hindi live stream for Indian audiences.
- A massive decline in peak viewership FFWS Sentosa – 25 May
Year Ender 2022 Free Fire Esports: From Ban in India to dropping viewership in FFWS, Things happened in 2022, CHECK DETAILS
Post FFWS Sentosa
- Garena announced Free Fire Nepal Championship
- SEA Limited (The parent company of Garena) faces losses of more than 1 Billion due to the ban in India – on 2 September
- Indian employees of Garena had been shifted to the Nepal Servers.
- ED investigates Garena Free Fire and CODA Payment Limited.
- Garena officially shuts down all the operations of the Booyah app in India major reason considered as heavy losses faced by them – 22 October
- Garena schedules streams for FFWS Bangkok in Hindi — 25 October
- Yash Bhanushali, Owner of Orangutan claimed that Free Fire Would return soon along with BGMI and No Esports operation until March 2023 – 4 November
FFWS Bangkok
The latest Free Fire World Series witnessed similar peak viewership compared to the last one, which raised concerns about the game’s return. Eventually, the title finished third at the Esports Awards 2022 (held in Los Angles).
With the community still looking for clarifications, they can do nothing but wait for the title to be returned in 2023.
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