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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

#931

Post by eggbert12 »

int_19h wrote: post #924
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #734

If you've got an automated vetting process with a 99.999% success rate, but are dealing with billions of accounts, that's still tens of thousands of false positives. At that level, "percentage" is an insufficient measure. You want "permillionage", or maybe more colloquially "DPM" for "Defects Per Million" or even "DPB". You'll still get false positives though, so you provide an appeal process. But what's to prevent t…

If a company has so many users that it can't hire enough employees to manually handle the false positives properly, it's too big to exist, and should be broken up.

This is by far the most ridiculous reasoning I’ve seen for a company being too big. Because too many users get restricted from the service unintentionally then the provider is too big?

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

#932

Post by whack »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #734

If you've got an automated vetting process with a 99.999% success rate, but are dealing with billions of accounts, that's still tens of thousands of false positives. At that level, "percentage" is an insufficient measure. You want "permillionage", or maybe more colloquially "DPM" for "Defects Per Million" or even "DPB". You'll still get false positives though, so you provide an appeal process. But what's to prevent t…

Honestly, the answer is to charge people a fee, in order to appeal a ban. A fee that covers the cost of investigating the incident, making it revenue-neutral. This way, Google would have every incentive to investigate thoroughly all appeals, including repeated appeals by the same person.

From the user's perspective, it's still a pretty good deal. There's a 99.999% chance that you get to use gmail/youtube/etc for free. And a 0.001% chance that you'll end up a statistic, and need to pay a nominal fee for an appeal.

Unfortunately, I don't think the above will ever happen, because it would be a PR nightmare. "Google wants to charge you money, just to appeal a ban!" It's still better than the status quo, where people have almost no recourse when they are banned. But it still sounds way better in the media, if you just pretend as though these things never happen. Hence the status quo - use automated systems to cheaply get to a 99.999% success rate, and spend as little money as possible on the remaining 0.001%

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

#933

Post by ReflectedImage »

suction wrote: post #361

I just can't imagine that this has happened completely "without reason" as he states. The reason might be silly, erroneous (whether human or AI), or dumb, but it exists. If Google has no procedure in place to investigate these bans on request, then Google is evil. But by the sound of this I get the feeling that this guy is leaving out some facts.

Let's be honest, he's been banned in error by some google bot.

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

#934

Post by Ruthalas »

sneak wrote: post #738
gumby wrote: post #729

As with mobile phone companies, airlines, and ISPs you need to treat google as your enemy. All of the above consider you a necessary evil or risk. (Unlike airlines and telecommunications companies I don't believe google actively hates its users at all. It just sometimes behaves like those who do, due to the nature of things). For Google, users are necessary as they are product to be sold. Next are various small custo…

> 2: when you must use google, make separate, carefully unconnected accounts for each project. How can one make this advice actionable? Creating new Google accounts requires providing a phone number to which one has long-term access (as they will sometimes require you to do SMS 2FA, even with 2FA off, when logging in). Using one on a different Google account links them (and could cause multiple accounts to get nuked)…

Would you be willing to share your resource for 'aged' accounts? Email is in profile if you'd prefer to send a private message.

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

#935

Post by torgian »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #151
romwell wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their new slogan is hilarious. It's not even one slogan, it's three: * Respect the user * Respect the opportunity * Respect each other The first one is obviously a joke, because nothing says "respect the user" like canceling a beloved service with millions of users, or "updating" the product while losing half the features. The last one makes you wonder why they had to put it into a slogan. Isn't it the baseline expec…

> Respect the opportunity Honestly, this reads like a Rule of Acquisition. I think Google may be run by Ferengi at this point.

A very apt comparison.

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

#937

Post by InitialLastName »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #874
seankimdesign wrote: post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please elaborate on bad actors absuing the appeals process? Is your point about how everyone will automatically appeal, making it difficult for genuine queries to receive the human attention they need? Or is there another vector of abuse you were thinking of?

That's basically it. If every action taken against an account by automation is appealed, then the automation becomes worthless. In gaming forums that are run by the developer, such as the World of Warcraft or League of Legends forums, I have very frequently seen people whining and complaining that their accounts were banned for no reason until a GM or moderator finally pipes in and posts chat logs of the user spammin…

We see that on HN too, where people who have been banned/hellbanned with ample warning are often complaining that it's because "hackernews groupthink" but when you look back at their comment history they call someone some redpilly insult in every comment they've ever made on the website.

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

#938

Post by the_only_law »

InitialLastName wrote: post #937
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's basically it. If every action taken against an account by automation is appealed, then the automation becomes worthless. In gaming forums that are run by the developer, such as the World of Warcraft or League of Legends forums, I have very frequently seen people whining and complaining that their accounts were banned for no reason until a GM or moderator finally pipes in and posts chat logs of the user spammin…

We see that on HN too, where people who have been banned/hellbanned with ample warning are often complaining that it's because "hackernews groupthink" but when you look back at their comment history they call someone some redpilly insult in every comment they've ever made on the website.

It’s even better when they claim shady moderator censorship for user flags.

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

#939

Post by ehsankia »

whack wrote: post #932
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #734

If you've got an automated vetting process with a 99.999% success rate, but are dealing with billions of accounts, that's still tens of thousands of false positives. At that level, "percentage" is an insufficient measure. You want "permillionage", or maybe more colloquially "DPM" for "Defects Per Million" or even "DPB". You'll still get false positives though, so you provide an appeal process. But what's to prevent t…

Honestly, the answer is to charge people a fee, in order to appeal a ban. A fee that covers the cost of investigating the incident, making it revenue-neutral. This way, Google would have every incentive to investigate thoroughly all appeals, including repeated appeals by the same person. From the user's perspective, it's still a pretty good deal. There's a 99.999% chance that you get to use gmail/youtube/etc for free…

Google One, which costs 2$ a month, as far as I can tell provides you with some level of support, which is definitely more than zero.

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

#940

Post by ehsankia »

tgtweak wrote: post #534
blunte wrote: post #477

Google uses non-human automation to make some decisions, including banning accounts. As others have mentioned, this is not unreasonable as long as there is a reasonable (in terms of time and effort) path to disputing a ban - i.e., speaking to a human about the issue. But Google (and Facebook, and probably some other companies) don't have reasonable processes for disputing or resolving these situations. Some have said…

There is no excuse for the laziness/ambiguity surrounding bans like this. I have witnessed, in 1 degree of separation, 3 separate Facebook business account bans in the last 12 months alone - the only reason cited is "you violated our community policy" with a link to the entire community policy and 0 clarification before or after requesting review. In 2 of those cases, they were high-6 & low-7 figure follower companie…

Is there any context on what attempts have been made by this developer to reach Google and what the results have been? The tweet provides very little context other than the fact that it's been 3 weeks. What paths did they take to contact Google? Did they receive any answers?
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