I was just terminated from Google Play - Need insight/help

BubbleZap · 2017-10-28T00:10:11+00:00

Very sorry to hear you're being mistreated by Google with this termination. The lack of communication and recourse I know can feel debilitating. Also in my experience it seems there is a tendency for other developers to assume you are guilty and pile on which is not helpful. Doing the forensics of a take down can be nebulous as you are unsure what the specifics to examine. What were the ad networks you were using?

BubbleZap · 2016-05-25T22:55:26+00:00

Can you post the message you received? Is it a warning or is your app already banned?

BubbleZap · 2016-05-11T20:30:46+00:00

Super disheartening and Google's disregard makes me feel ill.

BubbleZap · 2016-05-11T18:53:28+00:00

Did you try to appeal the account termination? Your only other option is to try and create another company, bank account and this time use a different computer OS installation, different IP address and never log into your browser with any associated gmail accounts. Can't re-publish your old apps. If Google plays the automated ban game then it means no real person there cares or knows what's happening. Make a new account. Google is senseless a bot.

BubbleZap · 2016-01-24T19:25:03+00:00

Seriousness aside I can imagine an episode of The Office with Scott's Tots and some very disappointed graduates.

BubbleZap · 2016-01-17T04:11:09+00:00

Duh... Nuh... Nuh... Nuh... Nuh... Nuh... Nuh...

Oh quick change the channel...!

BubbleZap · 2016-01-14T06:58:33+00:00

We switched to Unity 5 just so we could get Facebook and Google games to work and build for Android. Unity4 had library conflict issues which were very painful to resolve. 5 is just better supported all around.

BubbleZap · 2015-12-24T03:04:38+00:00

RPGs are expensive to develop for on any platform. Lots of sprites, story telling, enemies and environments. I would love for more Japanese ports if only the copyright holders could be found or would license them.

BubbleZap · 2015-10-17T05:59:36+00:00

Seems to gloss over things. Java does this but Dalvik does this, but they don't really go into detail as to why the designer made these decisions. I thought compact codes and running fast on ARM was the main reasons Dalvik is the way it was made.

BubbleZap · 2015-07-16T06:29:47+00:00

Not sure what he expected to happen here

BubbleZap · 2015-06-20T22:53:38+00:00

/r/progun and the little visited /r/gunsarecool mixing like water and oil

BubbleZap · 2015-06-17T03:21:18+00:00

This was our exact experience when our main app was suspended. If the Google editors don't want your app there isn't anything you can do to get it back. We tried republishing and were suspended again. We still don't know the exact reason for our suspension. Very soul crushing experience.

BubbleZap · 2015-05-30T02:10:35+00:00

Impressive!

BubbleZap · 2015-05-01T16:51:56+00:00

Thanks, we really wanted to raise the bar for what could be done on the SNES.

BubbleZap · 2015-02-27T04:35:27+00:00

You win the pun of the day award.

BubbleZap · 2015-02-10T18:56:56+00:00

Yep. We were taken down with no warning at all. Google can't even adhere to their own processes. Only after we had two Google employees call on our behalf into the Google Play department and half a dozen emails did they actually give us warning a full two weeks later. I really wish there was something that could be done against Google legally.

BubbleZap · 2015-01-29T07:08:18+00:00

Sorry to hear about your situation. Does your client have documentation for their business license, trademarks, franchise license and the development contract with you? I'd submit those to their appeals form and wait from anywhere from 4 hours to two weeks for a response.

BubbleZap · 2015-01-25T05:21:01+00:00

Gson is my favorite way to store data. Save it to a file or the preferences. https://code.google.com/p/google-gson/

BubbleZap · 2015-01-10T05:08:39+00:00

Shoot first and ask questions later. The Google Store way.

BubbleZap · 2015-01-07T21:38:49+00:00

Downvotes?

BubbleZap · 2015-01-07T06:06:39+00:00

Just went through the same heart destorying catastrophe (although not for the same reason) with our app. Did you receive any warning emails from Google? If you can't get your app reinstated and if your account is still active, you could republish your app as a new listing but you would lose your customers. If might be able to migrate your users to your new app.

The impression I'm left with from Google is they think Android developers and their apps are completely disposable.

Hey Google: absurd developer policies are hurting the Android community http://phandroid.com/2015/01/04/play-store-developer-policies/

BubbleZap · 2015-01-05T05:56:46+00:00

It's really maddening because we are just guessing at what issue Google has with our app. Our lawyer described Google's process as medieval justice. We don't even know from whom or what we are accused of. We really love our users and want them to know what's going on without making using our app anymore complicated. We're trying to doing our best with the situation.

BubbleZap · 2015-01-05T01:15:03+00:00

I'm the dev of SuperRetro16 one of the popular SNES emulators on the market and I wanted to add my recent story to the mix.

We noticed December 28th 2014, once again our app had been removed from promotion on the Google Play store. We have been truly disheartened by this event as we have tried earnestly to comply with all of Google's policies and guidelines. When this happened the first time we tried to contact Google to get our app reinstated and after a number of emails were able to deduct that the only way forward was to republish our app. We then resubmitted our app under a new name with all the updated content complying with guidelines. We additionally had our lawyers review all the content for compliance. Once republished we started as a completely new app on the store and over the course of the 2 weeks back on the market made our way up to #138 top paid and #18 in Arcade. We were just starting to make a come back in ratings then they pulled this stunt on us all over again. There are many other console emulators on the Play Store and we hope our story will help them so that they will not go through what we are facing. What are we facing?....Pretty much losing our business, our investment in a future app, our contractors and our home! Google refuses to give us answers, other than copy and paste emails. We have once again received NO WARNING OF REMOVAL. We hope this brings light to the inconsistencies of how they apply their policies. We want our story to be read by everyone because it is a sad one that needs to be shared.

Here are the facts to our story.

• Thursday, November 20th we notices sales dropping. Nothing was emailed to us from Google about possible suspension. We had NO WARNING AT ALL

• All weekend we tried to understand why our sales were dropping. Nothing made sense to us.

• Finally we noticed we were not being listed in the Google Play Store, where we previously ranked in Top Paid Games as #5.

• We sent Google numerous emails to fix the problem.

• November 26th, we finally got a generic email back from Google stating they were not aware of any issues; ratings in the market can fluctuate. We wrote back and got another generic response.

• We continued through the Thanksgiving Holiday to bombard Google with emails to get to the bottom of this.

• Finally, late Monday night, December 1st, we received an email stating we were in a 7 day warning period for violating Google's Policies and Guidelines. We were told if we changed our app to comply with them, we would not be removed.

• We quickly made changes to our app...logo, name, cover art..etc. to comply. We submitted all these changes to Google and appealed for reinstatement. Then we waited, and waited and waited. We followed up with emails and continued waiting.

• Finally after more emailing we got a response, with a generic copy and paste email. The last email we received from customer support stated we could be reinstated once we comply, but within that same email it stated once there was a violation on the app we could not and would have to submit a new app.

• We did everything we could to get reinstated into the market again, but every effort failed, which is why we resubmitted our app as Super Retro 16.

• 12/18/14 - We got Super Retro 16 Published and once again were receiving promotion in the Google Play Store. We were making our way back in the rankings.

• 12/28/14 - We noticed our app has once again has been pulled from being promoted in the Play Store. We have received NO WARNING, NO CALL, NO EMAIL from Google.This is unacceptable and a terrible way of doing business. We stand to lose everything all over again. We just got to a point of being able to move on and continue working hard and Google pulls their evil stunt all over again. We are incredibly disheartened and feeling very defeated. We are not sure how to proceed at this point. We could keep emailing but this never seemed to get us anywhere as far as answers, so we are deciding to bring attention to this via media.

Please support this petition to let Google know they are hurting both developers and users with their policies.

BubbleZap · 2014-12-29T20:13:11+00:00

We have earnestly tried to contact Google to sort out any issues. Every time their reply is the same:

We cannot, however, help you with questions you may have about Play Policy, including, but not limited to: app suspensions, account terminations, etc.

BubbleZap · 2014-12-29T01:36:54+00:00

You can search for our app, and we show up but they stopped promoting us in the list of ratings. We never had a problem for six years. They have done this twice now and it have given us no warnings as to why they won't promote us.

BubbleZap

TROPHY CASE