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Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

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Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#401
post #285

It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…

> It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. Google is a private company who offers free internet services in exchange for your privacy being violated. They have no customer service because you are not a customer as customers pay. You have no rights on their platform because again, you are not a paying customer. And you agreed to their te…

To be fair, even as a paying customer, you don't get much more "customer service".

The same also applies for Google Play Store where without a doubt you paid at least once and continue for every in-app purchase.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#402
post #9

This happens again and again. I have had that happen to my twitter account. I see this regulary on HN. My suspicion is that this is mostly happening because platforms that big like google or twitter rely very heavily on machine learning and other AI related technology to ban people. Because honestly, the amount of spam and abuse that are likely happening on these platforms has to be mind boggling high. So I get why t…

I wrote an essay about big tech's aim for a monopoly on moderation.

https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can....

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully, more devs will do what this dev is (said to be) doing. > Consider it burned. #Terraria for @GoogleStadia is canceled. My company will no longer support any of your platforms moving forward. Of course, it's very difficult for small devs to do this. It takes an already solid business to be able to stand up like this. As always, I think this is the only way for Google to change, but I don't think it can happe…

I think it's also probably easy to do this with stadia since it's effectively 0 users. What would he say if steam treated devs like google does?

If Valve treated game developers like Google does, Steam would have followed the path of Stadia which is failing despite being technically a good product.

That's my personal take on the current situation: despite owning one of the largest digital store, Google sucks at being a publisher. The actual automated ban is mostly inconsequential. Every large publishers have technical issue from time to time. What's unique to Google is that you can't effectively contact anyone to have them sorted out.

If you are an indie dev with a track record and works with Steam, XBLA, Epic or Nintendo, you will be in touch with a company representative.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#405

I just wish that regulation would step in and make behavior like this illegal for the corporate giants. It is definitely possible to limit the power of the TOS, and it's already done in some cases in Europe (certain common TOS clauses are just void and do nothing). One simple thing I'd really like to see is forbidding companies from terminating service without stating a reason, which seems like a really basic require…

[flagged]

Regulation != socialism

Welfare != socialism

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#406
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few months ago I've seen a Googler pissed on Twitter about how their spouses GMail account got suspended and he got completely stonewalled internally as well. It seems that even Googlers themselves cannot get any human contact for account support. (Sadly I can't find that Twitter thread anymore.) EDIT: Found it - https://twitter.com/miguelytob/status/1315749803041619981

How do you manage to get totally locked out of your account though: if I have backup codes, a backup email address, the backup code for my 2FA app... surely I am protected from this, right? Assuming my account doesn't get hacked and turned into a spambot. I am sitting here thinking of what would happen if my Gmail account got blocked. The disruption it would cause to me is enormous.

What is being discussed here is not "I lost the password", is "Google disabled my account because they have reasons". In the latter case, you could have the right password and the account would still not work.

> surely I am protected from this, right?

Nope. Google can disable you account at any time, without telling you why, and without giving you any appeal process whatsoever. No free-gmail user is in any way protected against this. People paying for Google Suite accounts are ever-so-slightly more likely to receive some support if anything happens, but that's it.

> The disruption it would cause to me is enormous.

This is why I'm slowly moving away from it (and everything Google, really). The service is extremely reliable, it raised the bar for email services and web UI, what they've done to spam is fantastic, but the possibility of losing such a key account and not have any recourse is now too terrifying to contemplate.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#407
post #285

It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…

> It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. Google is a private company who offers free internet services in exchange for your privacy being violated. They have no customer service because you are not a customer as customers pay. You have no rights on their platform because again, you are not a paying customer. And you agreed to their te…

> Want to be treated like a person? You have to pay for that.

Andrew Spinks, the author of the linked tweet, was a business partner of Google's. That didn't save him.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#408
post #143

Man, some of those replies on Twitter are unreasonably harsh to this guy. Being a game developer seems like a really thankless task. Why are so many game players so entitled and unfriendly?

> Why are so many game players so entitled and unfriendly?

Probably because they are the biggest group out there. Games are now bigger than movies, after all. The bigger the group, the more likely it is to contain a well-populated minority of viciously hateful people, a bit like "the bigger the country, the more likely it is that it will contain a sizeable group of hardcore nazis".

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#410
post #285

It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…

> It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies I get where you're going, but I think far more costly to them and advantageous for us is to simply show them that they are unnecessary. If we can drop them so easily, they can't pull stuff like this anymore. It is possible to drop Google and Facebook. They do this stuff because people _need_ the…

What's stopping the next Google from doing the same? Providing poor justification for bans and removal from platforms is by no means limited to the big companies - it's endemic throughout tech - we just hear about Google and Facebook more because they're higher visibility and are considered more essential.
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