Monday, April 14, 2014

MTG Wishlist Pro

Hi Munsons!

some of you may be aware of this, MTG Wishlist Pro is no longer available on Google Play. Well, that's not really true but let's try to explain what happened here:

MTG Wishlist Pro has been live in Google Play since January 2013 and the description has rarely changed since them appart from adding all the new features. Some weeks ago we added some new features to the app and modified the app by adding some text enrichment and a disclaimer at the bottom.



On March 24th we received the following email from Google Play Support:


This is a notification that your application, MTG Wishlist Pro, with package ID com.themunsonsapps.mtgwishlist.pro, is currently in violation of our developer terms.
REASON FOR WARNING: Violation of the spam provisions of the Content Policy. Please refer to the spam policy help article for more information.
Do not use irrelevant, misleading, or excessive keywords in apps descriptions, titles, or metadata.
Your application will be removed if you do not make modifications to your application’s description to bring it into compliance within 7 days of the issuance of this notification. If you have additional applications in your catalog, please also review them for compliance. Note that any remaining applications found to be in violation will be removed from the Google Play Store.
Please also consult the Policy and Best Practices and the Developer Distribution Agreement as you bring your applications into compliance. You can also review this Google Play Help Center article for more information on this warning.
All violations are tracked. Serious or repeated violations of any nature will result in the termination of your developer account, and investigation and possible termination of related Google accounts.
The Google Play Team


as it can be seen, there's no real reason on what exactly was wrong. The description contained only some additional characters such as ★ or bold texts, including a disclaimer saying: "Magic: The Gathering is copyrighted by Wizards of the Coast. This app is not produced, affiliated or supported by Wizards of the Coast". So after receiving the gentle alert from Google Play we decided to revert as soon as possible all changes made and go back to the previous state, which seemed to be accepted by Google Play as can be seen in the screenshots:

MTG Wishlist Pro description at suspension time


7 days later we found this notification:

This is a notification that your application, MTG Wishlist Pro, with package ID com.themunsonsapps.mtgwishlist.pro, has been removed from the Google Play Store.
REASON FOR REMOVAL: Violation of the spam provisions of the Content Policy. Please refer to the keyword spam policy help article for more information.
Do not use irrelevant, misleading, or excessive keywords in apps descriptions, titles, or metadata.
All violations are tracked. Serious or repeated violations of any nature will result in the termination of your developer account, and investigation and possible termination of related Google accounts. If your account is terminated, payments will cease and Google may recover the proceeds of any past sales and the cost of any associated fees (such as chargebacks and payment transaction fees) from you.
If your developer account is still in good standing, you may revise and upload a policy compliant version of your application as a new package name. Before uploading any new applications, please review the Developer Distribution Agreement and Content Policy.
If you feel we have made this determination in error, you can visit the Google Play Help Center article for additional information regarding this removal.
The Google Play Team


We tried to appeal with the arguments described above but then we received this notification:

Hi,
We have reviewed your appeal and will not be reinstating your app. This decision is final and we will not be responding to any additional emails regarding this removal.
If your account is still in good standing and the nature of your app allows for republishing you may consider releasing a new, policy compliant version of your app to Google Play under a new package name. We are unable to comment further on the specific policy basis for this removal or provide guidance on bringing future versions of your app into policy compliance. Instead, please reference the REASON FOR REMOVAL in the initial notification email from Google Play.
Please note that additional violations may result in a suspension of your Google Play Developer account.
Regards,
The Google Play Team


As they say, it's a final decision and they won't respond back again, so the only thing we could do was to republish MTG Wishlist Pro again in a different package, which means loosing the chance to update the app for existing users, the installs count (862 users at the moment), the reviews of the app (49 comments and 117 rates), the statistics...and all the job done.

Existing MTG Wishlist Pro users, you should probably contact Google support if you can't see the app as bought. We're unable to provide updates for it, so the only solution we can provide is: 

  • Keep MTG Wishlist Pro installed. This won't get updates, but will work as a key
  • Install MTG Wishlist free. Use it as if it were the Pro version, everything should work as it should if both apps are installed in the same device and will get updates regularly.
The only issue of this solution is to have the app duplicated, which should be around 6mb extra.

We do apologize for any inconveniences, as you can see there's no much there we can do...we're open to any other solution you can ask.


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