Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#11

Post by HideousKojima » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:18 PM UTC

artemonster wrote: post #6

Welcome to dystopia. Your lifeline ends due to some automatic flagging and you are banging your head against semi-automated processes and autogenerated "we are looking into it" replies and the only way forward is a public outcry via blog/HN. I hate this timeline very much. Good luck with your appeal process!

Part of me hopes a breakup of Google will fix this nonsense, another part of me worries it will only make things worse.

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#12

Post by mrkramer » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:20 PM UTC

artemonster wrote: post #6

Welcome to dystopia. Your lifeline ends due to some automatic flagging and you are banging your head against semi-automated processes and autogenerated "we are looking into it" replies and the only way forward is a public outcry via blog/HN. I hate this timeline very much. Good luck with your appeal process!

Even Zuckerberg complains that every time they patch some of the Meta's apps on the App Store they need to wait days or weeks in order to get approved. If Facebook and Instagram are not important to Apple and most probably Google too then we can't be surprised that indie devs get cold feet.

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#13

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:21 PM UTC

mrkramer wrote: post #3

Game looks awesome....release it on Steam.

[deleted]

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#14

Post by htek » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:23 PM UTC

artemonster wrote: post #6

Welcome to dystopia. Your lifeline ends due to some automatic flagging and you are banging your head against semi-automated processes and autogenerated "we are looking into it" replies and the only way forward is a public outcry via blog/HN. I hate this timeline very much. Good luck with your appeal process!

Yeah, gotta love the modern conveniences of fobbing your customers off to automated hell. Reminds me of my experience buying something on eBay without creating an account, having a problem with the item and no way to contact the company other than creating an eBay account and reaching out to the seller. Well, that went well as I was instantly blocked, terminated and told to never return. All I did was contact the seller with my order number, as presented by eBay, through eBay. The customer service drone was very unhelpful. Hope the OP has better luck with Google.

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#15

Post by amelius » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:24 PM UTC

artemonster wrote: post #6

Welcome to dystopia. Your lifeline ends due to some automatic flagging and you are banging your head against semi-automated processes and autogenerated "we are looking into it" replies and the only way forward is a public outcry via blog/HN. I hate this timeline very much. Good luck with your appeal process!

> Welcome to dystopia

The end-game of capitalism is where companies start to recursively regulate their own markets. Perhaps government regulation wasn't so bad after all?

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#16

Post by TheJoeMan » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:26 PM UTC

I’m not saying it’s the author’s fault, but their metadata has many “yellow” flags… it looks like a copycat of a popular flash game, the author’s name is atypical, and they admitted to already have 2 strikes on Google Play Console. None of this is their fault, and it’s certainly a false positive. I know they’ve put in hundreds of hours of sweat on the code, but perhaps they could turn their focus to registering a corporation, getting trademark for “anti-idle”, and linking the DUNS to their app store accounts.

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#17

Post by trabant00 » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:33 PM UTC

A long time ago I operated an email blacklist. Since then I don't just trust by default when people shout "they banned me for absolutely no reason, I swear!".

I am not saying anything about this case, I just notice people on HN always take these post as 100 percent true. When money is involved, people get caught and their revenue affected they are capable of spinning the wildest tales.

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#18

Post by Mistletoe » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

Trying to talk to a tech giant is like trying to talk to the borg. I don’t know when it became acceptable to just have no customer service or someone to talk to at all.

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#19

Post by ffsm8 » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:42 PM UTC

bitbasher wrote: post #5

mrkramer wrote: post #3

Game looks awesome....release it on Steam.

Steam is a mess. It looks like it would do well on the Switch and you'd make a lot more money on console.

Saying that the Nintendo/Switch developer experience is better then valve/steam... Needs citations to say it mildly.

Re: Google Play killed my game and won't tell me why

#20

Post by pif » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 1:47 PM UTC

trabant00 wrote: post #17

A long time ago I operated an email blacklist. Since then I don't just trust by default when people shout "they banned me for absolutely no reason, I swear!". I am not saying anything about this case, I just notice people on HN always take these post as 100 percent true. When money is involved, people get caught and their revenue affected they are capable of spinning the wildest tales.

> they banned me for absolutely no reason, I swear!

I tend not to believe the "no reason" part, but I still stand on their side when their privileges are revoked without human intervention and without a human customer support agent available by phone.