Missing Play Store Games
Google Play Store has removed Korean War, WW1-Western Front, and Kursk. So, if you ever want to update those apps or install them to a new device, simply re-buy them from Amazon App Store, which does not go around randomly removing apps that have been around up to 10 years and passed 978987987 previous reviews without problems. Frustrated. The core issue is this: In the past I have offered free no-ads no-tracking turn-limited demo versions as separate apps because the players kept asking for them. I can't delete those old free demo apps from the Play Store, that's not allowed. I did make them unpublished, BUT, if I don't update them I will get penalized (YES, Google in its infinite wisdom forces developers to update a decade ago abandoned apps). But if I DO update the old demos, they will get republished, and I get penalized for having duplicate content (the demo app is too similar to the paid app). It's a guaranteed lose-lose situation for a developer like me, who has a lot of stuff on the play store since I have been active over a decade (in the past all the rules were different, in apps were not around or initially only worked in a few countries). And yes, I have appealed these decisions 98798897 times, in the past I have won, but these days there is very, very, very little human consideration left in the Play Store processes. And even if you get a human, he/she has one nanosecond to make a decision to meet his/her quota of decisions for that week. It's utterly hopeless, all human common sense and taking context in consideration is forever lost. It is also noteworthy, that these random blurs of bans often happen on Friday nights. My apps are high enough quality that everyone can browse through the Facebook page and see that many have publicly stated my Android-only apps have kept them from switching to Apple ecosystem. This is freaking reward I get for trying to increase trust in the play store by offering free demo versions the players can test, even for a year if they please.
It is hard to put it into words, how massively different experience it is to make business with Amazon vs Google. Play Store keeps regularly coming up with random or illogical decisions, in the past I have succeeded in getting most of them overturned, but in recent years the appeal process has sadly turned from thoughtful humans to even more automated/outsourced brainless rule staring without any common sense considerations. In a total opposite to Google: The Amazon App Store has contacted me precisely twice over all these years, and both times I have agreed that they were making a solid point, and I happily made a minor change in the game. Feedback from Amazon has so far been very thoughtful and useful, and I have had zero disagreement with their suggestions based on consistent, predictable logic. Over the years, Amazon has earned my trust, while dealing with the Play Store is like being in an abusive relationship you can't (afford to) quit. Every time they contact me, I'm instantly stressed and fearful: what thing that was fine the previous 979879878 times is now raising their anger. It is pretty obvious why most android developers have either shifted to solely creating apps for iPhones, or quit the software field entirely, or just simply committed sui***e after Google's conflicting policy rules have decimated the business they have worked their best years on.
And we developers are not alone noticing and saying Google has gone utterly awry: App founder quits Google, says company doesn't serve users anymore: A scathing blog post details dysfunctional life inside Google: "The company is trapped in a maze of approvals, launch processes, legal reviews, performance reviews, exec reviews, and other bureaucratic processes, and while the employees are capable, they get very little done quarter over quarter, year over year. I have left Google understanding how a once-great company has slowly ceased to function."
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