“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” – Mark Twain
As you can imagine today I’ll be talking about the future of my mobile games and… it’s not a bright one. First of all: I always made the mobile versions more to please my fans, and even if Google+Apple+Amazon together were bringing in some nice extra revenues, all of them combined still weren’t more than desktop sales (Steam+Itch.io).
However, as you can imagine making builds for 3 different platforms was a lot of work, and if I compare the time spent with money made, probably not worth it. First adapting to mobile, then testing. Every time I wanted to build an app, it was taking several minutes, which for someone used to Ren’Py instant run on desktop is a lot. Then, problems with various devices, very difficult to debug and fix bugs, having to use an external coder for iOS, people losing access codes, and so on. You got the idea.
Developing games cross-platform is good, but only if your games are big sellers. Mine obviously aren’t, so instead of a benefit, it was becoming a burden.
The censors are here!
Now for those who don’t know what happened, in the last weeks Google Play suspended my account. I can’t access my developer panel, I can’t check sales, I can’t do anything anymore. All is gone. Why? Because of repeated violation of their “sexually explicit content” policy.
Now before we go on, I’m all for protecting children against adult content. Smart companies like Valve just made an “adult only section” of their store and restricted the content, so everyone can enjoy what they want without censorship. But the thing is, my games on mobile were already censored (by myself) by removing the most suggestive images. So what were they complaining about?
If I understood correctly, beside the app content, even the store listing imagery had to be “suitable for a general audience or removed from your store listing”. Below there are some pictures that are considered not suitable for a general audience. It might be a cultural difference because I live in Europe but you can see much more explicit images on perfume ads everywhere in Europe…or just by going to the beach.
When I got the suspension I made an appeal and it was rejected, but at least in that email was listed exactly which ones of these various suspensions were the ones that triggered the deletion of my whole account (because I didn’t know at all). The real issue was with some images in Bionic Heart 1 & 2. They’re below:
Are they right or not? For someone living in Europe, even the last two pictures are nothing so explicit, but I guess depends on the country/culture. If you search for “perfume ads” images you’ll see much worse stuff that appeared on TV, magazines, billboards, etc. When you grow up and seeing naked human body is normal, it’s hard to even only understand what you’re doing wrong!
In the end though, it’s their store and they can do what they want. If tomorrow they wake up and only games in black and white are allowed, we must obey. If they decide that visual novel as genre must be banned, they can do it. Is it right, is it not? In the end, doesn’t matter.
The future
Even if both Apple and Amazon (they have an Android appstore) never bothered me with any of this, also because it’s really not clear and depends on interpretations, it might be just a matter of time. Indeed this whole thing taught me a lesson, that I cannot really trust 3rd party companies which have a monopoly over a platform/device.
I mean, with desktop games in the worst case I can still sell them myself on itch.io or other sites (even if Steam is much more friendly now). But mobile? If Google Play was my only source of income, today I would be writing a blog post “sorry I’m quitting indie dev” 😛
I don’t know what will happen in future yet, but the only sure thing is that if you’re looking to play Planet Stronghold 2, or any of the upcoming games, your best bet is to get them on desktop devices.
Sorry to hear about this I really am I’ve always enjoyed playing your games on my tablet. So now I’ll have to switch to playing them on my iPhone
Yeah so far my games are still on iphone, but I don’t plan to release new games on any mobile devices though: it’s too risky if in one moment all your work can vanish like that.
A “general audience” implies content that would be safe around children. The Bionic Heart images advertise a game that is meant for an older audience. Unfortunately, Google Play’s policies means this may not be your ideal platform for mobile games.
As for the group people that dislike that kind of stuff, it’s more of an internet phenomenon than American culture specifically.
Yeah if the mobile stores can’t do like all other stores (Steam, Epic, etc) and have a specific “adult section” (even if that maybe means just bikini!) then it’s definitely not a good fit for my current games.
For those who have already purchased games on android what can we do? Are they lost forever? Can we get an apk mailed to us?
I haven’t had the time to build the APKs sadly, since I need to remove the IAP and other things and takes time. If you have the original emails the best I can do is give you Steam keys at this point (I can’t even access data to verify purchases!) 🙁
Ahhh that blows man I loved the game roommates I baught the story for the guy and the cheats, I had some good memories while playing the game I would download it every year during my fishing trip….damnnn I just started to look for it again because my fishing trip is tomarow….and here i was getting angry at the winter wolves company for it dissapearing when really it was the damn play store im so sorry
funny,that i only played 2 games on mobile FO Shelter and Kisses and Curses and that was years ago. maybe because i’m actually work at work,not playing some shitty mobile games,and at home there is PC.
As a french canadian i can understand your situation. American are ”frigid” and sadly they force their way all over the place.
Hey now I am a American and I take offense to that
Hi! I loved playing this game on my android tablet, was kinda bummed that Anne couldn’t pursue Sally and that Max couldn’t pursue Dominic (because let’s be honest, who doesn’t like the enemies to lovers trope in media?), but still love it! Amazing art and storylines. Can’t tell you how many times I replayed the routes! It’s a bummer that google took it down. Censorship these days is getting out of control. Hope to see more from ya in the future!
-Love From Texas
Hah yes, at least Steam warns you beforehand, and worse case puts the game in adult only, but doesn’t remove them! I don’t think I’ll ever make games again for android 🙂 but some of my games are getting out on consoles.
Hi. I know this is old, and it sounded like you’ve made up your mind about releasing your games on mobile, but you can certainly do it through Itch. I don’t know if by now you know you could do this, but there are devs who make their games compatible for mobile. Since adult games aren’t allowed on the Google store. I have downloaded them with no issue, and can play them on my phone. So you shouldn’t have any problems if you do it this way.
Yes I know, problem is that if I do a mobile version I would still want to provide support to it and I’m not sure I have enough time to do that (or, in other words, that the money coming from the mobile versions would be worth my time).
I guess I’ll see, but definitely it’s an option.
I played the demo for roommates when I was 15 or so, (at the time I wasn’t really aware that if it had an age rating), and I happened to think about it randomly (I’m almost in mid 20s now lol). I’m super disappointed google has removed it :[ that also must’ve been very frustrating for you. is there any way I can play it from a Samsung phone? if it’s gone forever that’s a real shame, I hope this whole situation doesn’t put you off creating and sharing games in the future. I’d love to support your work if I’m able to elsewhere.
Yeah unfortunately I am never going to trust again mobile companies after this. So from now on all my efforts will be focused on open platforms like PC/Windows and Linux. I have a company that’s porting some of my games to consoles as well (though obviously they’re censored there).