Daily Archives: October 4, 2019

Experience Talk

Nightmare with Google Play

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After Mac issue, Google Play? Isn’t there any good news for developer? T_T Sadly that might be the current case…

FIRST NIGHTMARE: GOOGLE PLAY 64 BIT NECESSITY

This is actually happened quite long ago but I haven’t done anything to fix it yet as it’s pretty complicated.

64bit app issue is actually pretty old, but it seems the new issue is different with the older one. To support Android Q, Google asked developer to make the app to contain the new arm binary (er forget the code), different with the older one. The problem is, if I update my current app to this version, the ANE (Plugin) to process the in app billing won’t work anymore, and~~~I will need to buy and learn the new one (from different provider since the previous ANE maker doesn’t support this update anymore.)

But this is not all. Google did ask us to update the app to match Android Q requirement (it doesn’t mean the current app can’t be played on Android Q, but they want to remove all app which doesn’t match this requirement from Google Play Store), but most of Android devices actually can’t play this 64 bit type app. It’s too high-spec.
As the result, now developer need to upload at least 2 types of apps to Google Play store for one title, the older version which supports earlier version of Android OS and the newest one which only can be played on Android Q and other 64 bit supported devices.
Basically: Double Works.

Luckily, Google Play has let us to finish this until next year deadline. So there’s still time to learn about the new plugin and others…

SECOND NIGHTMARE: GOOGLE PLAY PROMO VIDEO

Sooo isn’t it just youtube?

Yes, even I myself would never think youtube will give me such issue orz.

The nightmare started with the notification from Google, asking us to remove ads from the google promo video (it’s youtube video), or the promo video will be removed from Google Play Store.

The issue is, I did monetize my older video, but all the ads now have been removed due to Youtube new rule, which mentions only channel with more than 1000 subscribers can have ads. But, it seems youtube system still detects this video which doesn’t have ads anymore as “video with ads” and Google play support can’t do anything beside telling me to ask youtube about it.

BUT

YOUTUBE HAS NO EMAIL SUPPORT IF YOUR ACCOUNT DOESN’T HAVE SPECIAL PRIVILEGE

Basically I only can write down on a community forum, andddd no one would answer it of course.

…okay it’s easier to reupload the video as a new video! Google Play also suggested this! Except….

“Your video has been uploaded previously, therefore this one can’t be proceeded. “ — Youtube

…the moment I saw that error message on youtube, I just feel… hopeless….. just…why? This is so absurd T_T

Maybe the only thing I can do is edit the video, like adding a blank frame at the end or something, changing the file name and try to reupload it again. But… this would give me more hassle, so probably I’ll simply delay this matter for now.

*Just hope there would be less issue for developer from now on.

Experience Talk

Dilemma with the new Mac OS 10.15 Catalina

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There are soo many dilemma with the the technical support lately. Sometime I wonder why the new OS update will cause more stir rather than bringing more sales >< Anyway, I’ll tell you a story about the issue with MAC update this time.

CATALINA HORROR

One day, Steam sent me email, notifying that I need to make sure my apps support 64 bit and notarization to make it works with the new OS, Catalina. I usually don’t pay much attention to OS update, because well, I have my apps in too many platform, and it’s a big hassle to confirm if it works in every new OS for every platform, unless there are a big notification that it will need urgent update like this or it won’t work anymore.

I thought it would be easy, like only turn the app to 64 bit and upload it to somewhere to get notarized. I WAS WRONG.

It’s very easy to turn the app to 64 bit, and all my apps on Steam started from HTTOYM (2015) are all 64 bit.
But then, the first notarization try ended failed. At first I thought I simply used a wrong SDK version, but that’s not that easy. The app needs to get the correct code sign first before notarized.

To do this code sign, we need to generate a certificate within the apple developer console (which cost 99 usd a year) but it’s ok as I already have it for iOS anyway. But that’s not all……..

After build the new app using the new SDK, I need to eliminate some files generated by the SDK that might bother the notarization progress, then code sign everything using the correct developer id certification (I got issue before cause idk why but there’s weird extra space that needs to be added on my developer id) then after finish everything, the next is…. proceed with the notarization.

NOTARIZATION HORROR

Tbh I already failed 3 times with this.

Basically it’s simple, I only need to upload the file to apple server. But it’s slow! I tried to use my ET Akio data to try because it’s the smallest, but it takes 30 minutes ish for the notarization. And then… ok let’s try the luck and see if it works or not this time 😕😕😥😥

After the notarization finished, I still need to staple the notarization result to the app itself before upload the new build to Steam.

Finish?

FINISH?

NO!

THE TRUE HORROR

Basically it will only finish for 1 build, while in my case, the games have each build for each language version.

This means, for Akio I need to reupload 4 build for the 4 languages it supports. Same for Takashi, then I also still have Kuon, Kurenai, and all my Eroolia and CAFE 0 Series. Imagine with the HTTOYM which now supports 7 languages (insert Death flag here) — in other words I need 14 hours ish only for HTTOYM game.

…is it really worth to do all of this?

…or maybe I should ask, is it really worth to ask developer to do all of this, Apple? 😭😭😭😭😭😭

For the meanwhile, I decide to learn first about how to notarize first while proceed with my other porting project T_T I can’t promise if I will make Catalina works with my games for now, as I haven’t succeeded yet as far with the notarization.

If it takes longer and messier than what I thought, I might drop all support for Catalina and later. My suggestion for now is simply, don’t update to Catalina yet T_T