
Tell HN: Google bans my game for referencing Covid-19, which I designed in 2017 - LukaszO
Hey i heard about the Podcast Addict app, this is sad news for all of us, because the bots are banning everything that could be a reference to COVID-19 which is quite a hyprocrytical move. They changed their whole Google Hangout app to become Google Meet to profit of the virus.<p>I designed a game about the Pandemic in January 2017, i was slowly developing it being inspired by Reigns and Plague Inc.<p>After the COVID happened i continued my work on the game and released the game on 5th of April 2020 after successfull appeal to pre-release ban. I even successfully ran Google and Facebook ads for the game Pre-Register period.<p>Then after a week the game was banned. I appealed again couple of times but without a success. Now Google Play don&#x27;t even reply to my emails.
Finally i decided to release the game on Steam, it will be available on 20th May. I put almost a 6 months of work on this game and i felt that i lost all this time because of this unfair ban, but i&#x27;m glad i can release the game on Steam without any problem or censorship attempts.<p>Also i want to emphasize that the game does not contain any COVID-19 references, nor any medical advices nor any propaganda. I designed it to be an universal pandemic&#x2F;virus game. There are no words like corona, covid, or anything similar.<p>Screenshots with proofs that i&#x27;m saying the truth:
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;drive.google.com&#x2F;folderview?id=1RGfllIgAS5hJ2cHhWsmhaotb8H0FgrHy<p>Source Code from 2018
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bitbucket.org&#x2F;PassengerMan&#x2F;samples&#x2F;src&#x2F;master&#x2F;Cpp&#x2F;PANGameplayTypes.h
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Awelton
The heavy hand of Google strikes down another. Don't you know that you aren't
allowed to say wrongthink words or think wrongthink thoughts? Please try
again, but this time try a little harder to please the Google. Only CDC
approved persons are allowed to allude to or speak of the single largest thing
people happen to currently be talking about. Pick up that can.

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koheripbal
What we need is Google Play Store alternatives.

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viklove
There are several alternatives, not to mention you can sideload APKs.

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gentleman11
Not commercially viable ones for small devs who need to make a living

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classified
Google is not the steward of our civil rights, they just want our money. Once
they've got your money, it's their way or the highway.

If you enter a one-sided business agreement that gives you no leverage over
your opposite you should know what to expect and not be surprised when it
happens. Not reading the fine print before you sign is your risk to take.

If you want control, don't give it away.

~~~
gentleman11
If you want to make a commercial game without using an App Store, you have no
choice without having absolutely massive funding. Look what epic is having to
spend to get established on pc

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aabbcc1241
My general advice is to make your software portable.

If you target android platform, you can at least distribute the APK for people
to install;

If you target iPhone, I suppose your target audience may not jailbreak the
phone just to play the game, so the proprietary app store becomes the only
practical option;

If you target the web platform, boom, you can distribute the game to almost
all of your target audience.

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LukaszO
That's true, but unfortunately in reality you don't have any other viable
places to distribute your game because the market is already monopolized. If
you want to reach the biggest userbase you must release your product in the
most popular stores.

What is the best place to release premium android game? Google Play - biggest
userbase, integrated payment, integrated with your google account.

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aabbcc1241
Besides Google Play Store, you can spread the game in game forums. Like
reddit. You can also place ads of your game on FB/IG/search engines.

And personally, I never permit the games I play to access my Google account. I
even disabled Google Game on my device and blacklist the domains in nextdns.io

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LukaszO
I wanted to add that i successfully ran game promoting ads on Google Ads and
Facebook Ads through the whole March, without any limiting despite having
"virus" words in the ad.

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mysterydip
My game got banned without any specific references as well. It was a pacman
clone where you were shopping in a store and had to avoid other patrons who
were a virus in disguise. Banned for "taking advantage of a tragedy". We re-
themed it as zombies and now it's on the stores.

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tinus_hn
While this case is just unfortunate contrasted with the absolutely ridiculous
podcast app story, the general censoring issue is making its way through the
international press. There will probably be some updates to the policy.

~~~
LukaszO
I agree with you, thanks to the Podcast Addict case more people will know
about google practices. It took very popular app to make it to the mainstream
news and i hope the change will be for the better and maybe small developers
will also be heard in this discussion.

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kongtse
alternative play store instead of supporting the alphabet for too long. is
only about care and communication example
[https://f-droid.org/](https://f-droid.org/) ;-) xD

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gentleman11
I am sure that is very appealing for game developers who want to be able to
make their games full time

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tetromino_
IMHO, releasing a new pandemic game (where I assume your goal is to kill as
many people as possible with a virus) in the middle of a real-life pandemic is
tone-deaf. It also very much looks like "appearing to profit from a tragic
event with no discernible benefit to the victims" which is an example of
banned content at [https://play.google.com/about/restricted-
content/inappropria...](https://play.google.com/about/restricted-
content/inappropriate-content/)

If you really want to release this right now on a different platform, maybe
follow the example of Plague Inc's developer:
[https://www.ndemiccreations.com/en/news/175-plague-inc-
gives...](https://www.ndemiccreations.com/en/news/175-plague-inc-gives-a-
quarter-of-a-million-dollars-to-fight-covid-19)

~~~
LukaszO
"where I assume your goal is to kill as many people as possible with a virus"
Game goal is the opposite. I can't imagine i can run funds or donate anything,
i am a single private person, ndemic creations is a professional company.

You can check out the game here:
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1305370/Pandemia_Virus_Ou...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1305370/Pandemia_Virus_Outbreak/)

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rnotaro
Your main trailer when I open the steam store page is not in english. You
should present the english trailer first.

Does steam allows different screenshot / videos for different languages?

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LukaszO
Thanks for the info, i changed videos order. You can set the language for the
video and screenshots but it somehow displays for everyone.

