In recent days, Call of Duty Mobile players in Vietnam have been unable to log in to this game. It is likely that the game publisher for Call of Duty Mobile in these countries, Garena, has blocked IPs from Vietnamese players. The fan page for the international version of Call of Duty Mobile also sent a message to users who cannot access the game stating: “We apologize, this game is only available in Singapore, Myanmar, and the Philippines and other areas under Garena’s publishing authority.”
Thus, players in Vietnam have officially been “blocked” from accessing Call of Duty Mobile as usual. Many players are questioning whether this is a “preemptive strike” to force Vietnamese players to play the version of Call of Duty: Mobile VN by VNG in the near future?
Previously, there have also been many international version games that have been IP blocked to “force” players to stay within their own country and region. The most notable examples are PUBG Mobile and Crossfire Legends. Both of these games are published internationally by Tencent, which is also one of the largest shareholders of VNG. While Call of Duty Mobile is published in some countries by Garena, Tencent remains the development company and sells the publishing rights of this game to other entities.
Therefore, many players have asked questions about whether Tencent or VNG influenced Garena to force the IP block from Vietnamese users. The answer is certainly unknown, but it is clear that those who are suffering the most are the players who have already invested money in the international version.
Currently, there are still ways for Vietnamese players to log into Call of Duty Mobile. However, with the need to change IP addresses, stability of the connection is definitely an issue. Lag, latency, or even sudden disconnections are almost guaranteed to occur, which is a major disadvantage for online games, especially shooting games. Because just a slight delay can lead to players seeing their characters “going to the grave” immediately.
It seems that the prospect of the international version of Call of Duty Mobile reopening for Vietnamese players is very unlikely to happen in the future. Therefore, players have two options: either quit the game or be forced to play the Call of Duty version from VNG in the near future, whether they want to or not if they still have affection for this game.