https://frozenfractal.com/blog/2024/9/6/why-my-apps-will-soon-be-gone-from-google-play/
The first real money I ever made from game development was on Android. It was in 2013, when Android was still the underdog compared to the iPhone, and was being touted as a great platform for developers.
Disclaimer:
Even though the title says "my", this is not my blogpost.
While that may be just some paperwork and a small expense, the next requirement is more insidious: “a phone number and email address for Google Play users to contact you”. I’m fine showing an email address, but I absolutely do not want my phone number to be available to anyone on the internet. (Even for phone calls. But remember that a phone number is used for much more than phone calls these days.) And that’s just me, a privileged hetero white cis dude who is unlikely to be the target of harassment or doxxing.
Yup. For small developers (FOSS or not) that don't make money which can insulate them from this kind of stuff, it's a no-no.
You can get a phone number for a little more than a dollar a month at OVH. You can just redirect all call to voicemail and check once or twice a month and call it the day.
OK, then you're being really sketchy and screwing over customers.
Not publishing a phone number is perfectly fine. Publishing a phone number that's a black hole is extremely anti-consumer.
just have the voicemail say "this mailbox is rarely monitored and is here as a requirement for google play services; a better way of getting support is available at X"
It's also extremely anti-consumer to not offer any support. Which is likely the primary reason that Google is requiring this. There are so many apps out there that don't have any means of support, it's one of my primary complaints about google play, so many abandonwares or apps that were clearly put on there as a send and done with no intent to actually use them.
That's not better. It is not OK to have a phone number published that is not monitored regularly, no matter what message you leave when they call it.
You should have a legitimate contact method, but it is not acceptable behavior to publish a contact method that isn't handled appropriately. Publishing a number that always goes to voice mail is already really bad.
Shut the fuck up. There's no reason anyone buying a game on Google ever has to call you.
Full stop.
No shit?
Which is why requiring a number isn't OK. But the minute you make a phone number available to customers, it cannot be acceptable not to treat it like a phone number.
iPhone already has a lot of apps that aren't worth the effort to make available for Android, and this is going to make that meaningfully worse.
How about you post your phone number here? It seems you have no problem in sharing someone share their number in public, and I hope you put the same srandard to yourself.
It's no different than companies like Microsoft, you have their phone number that's a literal support line that says hey go to the website sometimes without even indicating where on the website that you go to.
I ran into that twice while dealing with an activation issue and a hardware purchase issue last year, their phone support will lead you in circles until eventually you hit a voicemail that says please go to this page. In one case it gave the location, in the other it said "this support is available on the Microsoft store website at" and it just gave you the store launchpage for ms store
"I'm only as much of a piece of shit as Microsoft" isn't a good defense.
There is no possible scenario where publicizing an invalid contact method is defensible behavior.
Honestly it just depends on the definition of invalid, it's still giving you information on where you need to go so it still gives you more information than when you started it's not like it just leaves you to a dead end number, now what some other people were proposing which is a virtual number and then just toss the phone after that I don't agree with. Nor do I agree with a number that doesn't give any info aside from just hanging up or endlessly ringing
When its not optional to publish email only, the proposed solution is pretty reasonable imo.
Fuck them for these games. It's an abuse of their market position.
Does Google offer a phone number for me to contact them about problems with their half-assed products? I've tried lots of times to reach a human being, but never raised a response as a private citizen.
well they only said offer a number, they didn't specify it had to lead to a human, Google offers numbers it just goes into automated call center hell unless you are a buisness
I bought a set of pixel phones the other day (for grapheneos)... I COULD reach google store support. Real people. I left the conversation dumber than when I started. I promise you talking to anyone at Google doesn't matter either. Google is just outright not worth it if you need support for anything... period.
Fuck google. I just want to be able to play minit on my phone, but no, Google says it's not good enough for me because they haven't updated the app in a while. You know, like most games. Of course they haven't updated the app, the game is finished, they've moved on from it.
Login from an old phone, then once it's installed on the old phone with the same Google account, it will appear on the newer phone. Yes, it's stupid
The problem is I don't have an old phone. But yeah I eventually figured that out for a game that I couldn't find online. So what I did was created an emulator on my computer with an old version of Android and logged into my account on that.
It would be much more customer and developer friendly to allow linking a service portal instead of providing a phone number. I would go insane if a user called me directly every time one of my projects had a bug or some perceived (non)issue. No, that's not how this works.
Just get a MySudo number, thats basically why they even have a business model. Its on Android and iOS
The issue isn't acquiring a number.
It's that publishing a number implicitly comes with the responsibility to monitor that number, which is a huge burden, especially if it's readily visible to bots.
They removed the requirement for a DUNS for individual developers, so I switched my account to individual from my previous LLC. My LLC has been inactive for a long time and I didn't feel like changing my address with the IRS and all that. But all of my apps are free.
But the real issue is they keep making it more difficult to keep the app active. There are so many documentation requirements that I just didn't have time for, so my apps which are really old got removed over one of those new requirements a while back. I fixed a few like making it an adults only app because it has a recipe for mulled wine. But it just wasn't worth all the other stuff and I haven't wanted to recompile in the newer SDK. If I could do it without making any changes to the code it would be fine, but there's been too many changes. One of these days I'll update it, but I'm one of the few people who even use my apps, so it's not a big deal.
This paperwork is required by EU regulation (Digital Services Act - DSA).
It is theoretically possible to be excepted but I doubt OP has any chance there.
Google has to manage a lot of huge companies' software, so while it sucks for the little guy, and Google could definitely be better about it, it's sort of understandable.
What we need are more and smaller independent (paid) app stores. Honestly, I'm shocked there aren't way more. We have the Google Store, Samsung Store, Amazon store and...that's it?
No one else wants a part of this multi-billion dollar industry? No itch.io Android appstore? No Humble? No GreenMan? No STEAM!?
Honestly, I'm shocked there aren't way more. We have the Google Store, Samsung Store, Amazon store and...that's it?
There are plenty of repositories for F-Droid, and from what I've heard, also for Aptoide.
That said, it is not really beneficial for most companies to compete with Google Play since they know the user base will be smaller, user experience will be worse (install warnings, no auto-update), and people may get affected by malware if they don't pay attention to where they are downloading things from (may download a scam app directly instead of the legit app store).
There are plenty of repositories for F-Droid
I said paid.
it is not really beneficial for most companies to compete with Google Play
Of course it is. The reasons are detailed in the OP.
user experience will be worse (install warnings, no auto-update)
This is a thing of the past at this point.
and people may get affected by malware if they don't pay attention
The same can happen on any other store.
I'm still shocked that steam isn't even present. They probably could manage to add it. Maybe arm versions for windows and Linux too. Maybe some magic to make it work with Linux natives? Just saying
Guess that and the lack of a good app means I can't sell anything on the play store.
As a developer myself, I'm not really sure where I feel on this. I can definitely see where this would hinder people's want a posting on the store and suppress their creativity, but I can also see why they're requiring it.
I couldn't imagine publishing an app without some form of ability to reach out to report bugs or reach out for support, cuz at that point what's the point of making the app if you're not planning on having people use the app.
That being said, the entire publishing a DUNS number I struggle to feel bad for, they went down the same route that I've done in the past where I've registered as an organization because organizations have less information that's had to be obtained, but because of that you're expected that you're doing it on a more commercial scale, which also means a more complicated and sometimes pricey system. This requirement would not have been the case if they hadn't set it up as an organization in the first place and just put it in as a one person development project, that would have required putting more personal information.
All in all, the information that is required from developers doesn't seem unreasonable, it's basic things that as a user you would want, and as a developer you should want to telling your users anyway.
As for the API requirements, I understand why they want to push the newer API levels, and nothing's more aggravating from a user's point of view then downloading an app only to find out that it has barely been upgraded since Kit Kat and still requires every permission under the moon to operate because it doesn't integrate with the newer permission systems, but I can understand that if you're relying on features that the API versions required that finding the new way of doing things isn't always an easy task, even when there's a super simple and easy to read article that says the changes between API levels like Google provides.
Nonetheless I don't think the API requirements are there as a way to cause a hindrance to the developer, I believe they're there to force developers to use the newer standards and it also acts as a way of knowing which apps are still being actively maintained, because really apps that are no longer being maintained don't really have a place on the Play Store. They already have a huge issue of abandonware apps, which gives Google play a trashy/unmaintained feel that their competitors (i.e Apple store) doesn't have, I can understand why they are finally putting a stop to it
Maybe the whole abandonware thing applies to regular apps, but in my experience most games without microtransactions get updated for a bit when they're released and then never again. Because there's no reason to update your game once you've fixed all the bugs, unless you're not adding new content.
I cannot tell you the number of times I've thought about a game that I used to like and looking for it on the Play Store, only to find out it's been taken down and I have to go for an hour long search through sketchy sites to find it. It's fine if you only play new games, but from my experience, the majority of old games are just not available, unless they're made by a studio that's still big enough to keep up with the requirements. For no good reason.
I would fully understand having a warning for old apps. They could even hide them from recommendations. But if I want to install an "abandoned" app, I should be able to.