Developers Say Google Play Unfairly Booted Their Bitcoin Rewards Game

Google just lately suspended and eliminated bitcoin rewards sport “Bitcoin Blast” from its Google Play app retailer for allegedly deceiving customers, but it surely won’t clarify to the builders what precisely was misleading concerning the sport. 

On Jan. 20, Google pulled Bling’s “Bitcoin Blast,” a match-three puzzle sport that rewards customers with bitcoin-redeemable loyalty factors. The Android model of the sport had been stay on the Play Retailer since Could 2019, CEO Amy Wan advised CoinDesk. 

Inside that point, she stated, it amassed 800,000 customers, 20,000 rankings and 13,000 written evaluations, putting it on the high rank for “bitcoin rewards” searches.

“We labored arduous to attempt to get to the place we had been,” Wan stated of Bling’s five-person developer group.

However shortly after Bling submitted a Bitcoin Blast replace that featured new advertising taglines (“Earn Free Bitcoin!” “Money Out Free Bitcoin!”), which Wan stated higher mirrored the present app expertise, Google axed it for “misleading practices.” 

A Google Play Retailer spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark by press time. 

The Bling group is now not sure tips on how to proceed with future updates; Wan stated they nonetheless have no idea what wants to alter. 

“If we don’t know what [Google] thinks is misleading concerning the sport, how can we probably cease being misleading?” she stated. “We all know the sport this in and out, and Google is spending perhaps a minute reviewing it.”

Google’s relationship with the cryptocurrency group has been tenuous for months. The search engine large, proprietor and operator of YouTube, Chrome and Android OS has blacklisted crypto content material with an usually shoot-first mentality, solely to then return and rectify obvious errors.

A reporter performed the iOS model of Bitcoin Blast for about 25 minutes on Jan. 28, incomes barely greater than 1,000 loyalty factors – the minimal quantity customers can convert into bitcoin. Makes an attempt to transform the factors had been profitable; the reporter’s newly made Coinbase account obtained 103 sats on Jan 29.

However Bling, and the app, could now need to reset. Wan stated Google wouldn’t let her group repair Bitcoin Blast with out submitting a completely new model underneath a recent bundle ID – deleting the sport’s amassed historical past and person evaluations. Google has already rejected the corporate’s first enchantment, Wan stated.

Google additional knowledgeable Bling, “Extra suspensions of any nature could consequence within the termination of your developer account, and investigation and doable termination of associated Google accounts,” based on screenshots reviewed by CoinDesk.

If that had been to occur, Wan stated, it will successfully throttle Bling’s total tech infrastructure, together with its iOS app hosted on Google Cloud. 

“For us, that was a really critical menace as a result of our enterprise runs on Google,” she stated. 

After taking information of the suspension to Twitter, Wan stated the Google Play developer Twitter account knowledgeable her it will grant the enchantment and “escalate” her case. However she has not seen any significant adjustments within the Play developer console and is not sure what, if something, will change.

“I feel it’s a black field for all app builders, however I feel particularly crypto apps are in all probability extra delicate,” she stated.

Wan stated the unexplained suspension carries hallmarks of different latest Google actions in opposition to crypto packages, companies and content material. Late final 12 months, YouTube deleted lots of of crypto-related movies earlier than reinstating most. Chrome additionally suspended the MetaMask pockets on suspicion it enabled crypto mining. That, too, has been reinstated.

Wan famous the Apple model of the sport remains to be stay. 

“I really feel like [Google] is worse for crypto corporations as a result of the second they see crypto or bitcoin, I feel Google’s pink flags simply go off,” she stated.