Google terminated Google Play Developer account automatically — 3 years of development are lost

This is an open letter from Hinmax Games (Hinmax Development Limited, Hong Kong) to the entire Android community and, in particular, Purnima Kochikar — Director of “Director, Google Play, Apps & Games at Google” and Lei Zhang “Head of BD Greater China. Google Play”.

UPDATE on 12 Jul:

We are infinitely grateful to the AndroidDev community for such a support! This morning our account was reinstated.
We hope that the Google Play Team is moving in the right direction in solving the developer problems!

Briefly:

• On June 28, we received a email stating that our account was completely terminated due to “Priority violation by this or associated accounts”.
• For over 2 years, we have been publishing our games on Google Play from a single account. We (including our employees) did not create any other accounts, did not break the rules. We have never received any warnings / remove / suspend for our apps.
• On July 9 (until that time we had consultations with the lawyers), we appealed this judgment.
• On July 10, we received a “template answer” (most likely from the bot) that the appeal was rejected, and the account was not restored.
• At the moment of blocking, we had 3 games (+2 games in preparation for the release), more than 500,000 downloads, a DAU of more than 10,000+, and a monthly income from in-app purchases $ 5,000 +.
• Result: more than 3 years of developing game projects and the work of a team of 10+ people were lost without explaining the reasons and without any human support from Google Play.

1. About our company
Our company HINMAX DEVELOPMENT LIMITED (registered in Hong Kong in 2013) has been developing games for mobile platforms since 2017. The team has more than 10 developers and designers.

2. About account
In 2017, we created a single account on Google Play, which we have been using for publishing our games.

Neither we nor our employees have any other accounts for publishing applications.

The main model of monetization of our applications is in-app purchases inside our games. The account for receiving payments from Google Play was verified and confirmed in 2017. All payments from in-app purchases were sent into our HINMAX DEVELOPMENT LIMITED account.

3. About account terminated
The morning of June 28 shocked us with the news that our Developer account on Google Play was completely blocked. Not just one application was deleted, but the entire account with all applications.

The letter indicated the reason: Prior violations of the Developer Program Policies and Developer Distribution Agreement by this or associated accounts as outlined in previous emails sent to the registered email address(es) of the Publisher account(s).

The letter baffled us. What are the prior violations? Since the publication of the first game in 2017, we have not received a single warning / removed / suspend of our games.
We always carefully and unquestioningly follow the rules of the Google Play Program Policies and Developer Distribution Agreement

After consulting with the lawyers, we filed an application, where everything was described in detail, through the form and received an answer from the bot:

According to the articles in Medium from Pablo A. Martínez, all these answers are automatic responses from Google bots. No human re-moderation or verification. It is absolutely unnecessary, isn’t it, Google?

We tried to contact Google Play Business Development managers on Linked In, including Purnima Kochikar and Lei Zhang (who is in charge of our region). But there is still no any response.

4. About our games
Wonder Island — Slots (release in 2019, June)

Arcade-adventure on thematic islands, in which you need to pass levels by completing quests while playing Slots for virtual chips. Each new island opens for the player a new kind of slots.

Town Secrets — Durak Online (release in 2019, March)

A journey in which you have to complete levels by performing simple tasks while playing the card game “Durak” against other players.

Durak Online (release in 2017)

A popular online card game in Russia and the CIS. Online games with other players and a system of tournaments for virtual chips are embodied.

5. Google’s attitude to developers
What do we have as the result?

• No human support from Google Play
• All developers and their applications on Google Play are not secured from being blocked by the “Google Intelligence” at any moment.
• During all conferences, the Google Play Team is describing so passionately how they help developers, how they give the new opportunities for development. In real life, you are absolutely useless, and nobody needs you.
• We spent huge budgets for game development, promotion (Adwords) and attracting players. Hardly had we begun to receive some income from Google Play (and in fact, 30% of it was taken by Google) when we found ourselves heading into a blank wall with the complete absence of any support.
• Why do developers need to spend time and money to develop games on Google Play, if they can get a ban without any reasons and be completely ignored at any moment?

We desperately ask the community to support us with like/repost/share in order to draw the attention of the Google Play team to difficult situation not only with us, but also with many other developers.

A campaign like Google can and must be closer to those who is developing content for the Google Play, who is trying to implement new ideas for Android users and who is actually generating profits for Google.

At least, developers should be able to have a real human communication with the support team, rather than receive standard soulless responses from the bots.

11 July 2019,

Viacheslav Cherkashy, CEO Hinmax Development Limited.