>Today I received an email from Google Play Support stating that Luck be a Landlord has been geo-blocked in the following countries: United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Iran, Jordan, South Korea, Libya, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.
>According to Google, the app "contains content that doesn't comply with the Gambling policy."
> It should go without saying that I 100% disagree with this decision. Luck be a Landlord does not violate any gambling policy that Google has in their terms of service.
I don't think its saying it violates google's gambling policy, it violates the gambling policy of those countries
But the game is just a game, there is no gambling. You don't pay money or get money... well you buy the game, but the slot machine aspect is a game mechanic, the same as an RPG will have a dice roll in the background and check against your stats and buffs.
> Luck be a Landlord is a roguelike deckbuilder about using a slot machine to earn rent money and defeat capitalism. This game does not contain any real-world currency gambling or microtransactions.
One of least effective ways to argue your case is by pointing to other apps that have the same violations. I say that having submitted 50+ apps across various categories and dealing with thousands of app review exchanges to get them released. You can find apps that violate all sorts of guidelines and laws and it is super frustrating when yours gets blocked but it is part of the business.
Did they slip by a reviewer that didn't care? Did they use their "VC" illuminati connections? Are they such a big player the rules don't apply? It doesn't really matter or have anything to do with getting YOUR app released and the reviewer you are talking to will most likely ignore that completely.
Your best bet is to remove or change the mechanic if possible, resubmit, and then add it back in during a future update if you feel strongly about it.
It is possible those other apps have something that allows them to keep it... and by communicating nicely and earnestly with your reviewer you might find a way to skirt the rules, if a way exists. For us, it was frequently tweaking copy or TOS or other minor changes that allowed us to release an app with only superficial changes that the initial review made it seem like we were totally screwed. I do get the instinct to just say FU though.
It might not be very effective or in the author's best interest to make this point to Google. But my assumption is that the author has already made that attempt and now, after that remedy has failed has decided to make an open appeal.
It is perfectly proper to make this point to HN readers and the general public who know nothing about the situation. It absolutely is relevant that Google do not appear to be applying their policies in a consistent and fair manner and as such are haphazardly fulfilling their consumer promise of operating "safe and secure" app stores.
Spilling conflict into the public sphere is the new way to "turbo" unreasonable disagreements these days. Everyone does it from cable and satellite companies down to individuals getting shit on by a corporate behemoth. Though I find it distasteful, so long as it keeps working, people will keep doing it.
What other things that are wrong and avoidable (being acts of humans rather than acts of nature) do you advocate just tolerating without even so much as reporting of discussing?
Animals must live with the environment as it is. Humans modify their environment to suit them.
It's ok to be fatalist for yourself. There is no valid reason to try to tell anyone else to be.
This only happened because App Stores are a central point of failure (and control and undue taxation).
Tell your legislators that Google and Apple need to open up to web installs. To make them first class, with no hurdles and no scare tactics.
In order to help facilitate this, open up devices to other stores from the moment of device activation - Google Play should be on iPhone, App Store should be on Android, etc. And build proper first-party browser support for "this website has an app, click to install".
If a customer knows about you and wants you, they should be able to grab you from your website. Or another marketplace.
The App Store system as it stands today is perverse and draconian.
As someone who makes decisions like the one Google made here at work, sorry, dude, but arguing about it publicly isn't going to change much.
Almost certainly Google has received pressure from these countries on this issue and their business there is more important to google than your single app. Google likely isn't being unreasonable - but the governments of these countries are. Sorry.
Historically, it seems like "arguing publicly, getting public outcry, and getting the notice of someone higher up the chain" is pretty much the only way to effectively appeal these sorts of decisions at Google.
I don't know if it'll work in this case, since google's argument ("this contains a slot simulator and some countries don't like that") isn't too egregious, but I can't really fault the dev. When the faceless review process fails, this sort of public appeal has worked before.
What is the appeal of this game? (Beyond exploiting addictive personalities with a very thinly-veiled gambling simulator that is rightly being banned.)
It looks so boring. I can't tell if the reviewers proclaiming this as an "innovation" in the "roguelike" (?) genre are trolling or not. It's an ugly slot machine game where you click a buttonn to spin. This would have been uninspired trash in 1993. What am I missing?
As someone with several dozen hours in it, I think of it as the purest distillation of the "deck builder" game genre. In a deck builder, you often shuffle your deck and the order in which you draw the cards influences the stuff you're able to do on each of your turns. This works the same way. You slowly build up a set of symbols which can appear in some random order. The first 20 of them show up on the slot board and their adjacency to other symbols causes various effects to happen. You're trying to make the 20 symbols that appear on each spin be as profitable as possible so you can keep up with the escalating rent payments.
I adore this game and I tell everyone I can about it.
The game is very much a deckbuilder like dominion or slay the spire, and the slot machine is just fluff, except maybe adding a two dimensional aspect to it.
The main appeal is: You accumulate symbols into your deck, and the slotmachine arranges a random selection of your symbols up to 20ish (don't recall 100%) onto a 4x5 grid. Afterwards, symbols interact with symbols, combos happen and it just becomes funny to make a couple hundred thousand gold in a single spin. This is very similar to the fun of having an engine go off in dominion.
And then that appeal changes as you realize that there is very little luck necessary in the game. If you try hard, you can get win streaks at highest ascension levels. If you learn the different combos beyond the obvious ones, the weird interactions you can have with items and essences and so on.
It takes some 3-4 runs to appreciate the depth the game actually has. And then the fun begins.
You're missing the rougelike part. This game is more about deck building and rougelike elements than it is about gambling. The button to spin is indeed the least interesting part of the game.
You pick symbols to add to the wheel that have complex rules for what they reward. To oversimplify, it's slay the spire for people who like the deck-building part but find the battles tedious.
That clone the author mentions in passing is pretty sad. They didn’t even try to change the items or anything about the game to make it their own — literally everything except graphics seems to be lifted directly from the original. Then they went and raised $6m off the back of someone else’s hard work and savvy design.
The game is literally a virtual slot machine. The fact that it doesn't have real money involved doesn't make it legal in all those countries with restrictive gambling laws. And it's bizarre to bring up other games like Jetpack Joyride in your claim when they primarily have non-gambling mechanics and yours doesn't.
The author conveniently forgets to mention that Luck the Landlord game is primarily a slot-machine. Instead, they provide counter examples of games that have slot machine mechanics in them to argue that Play Store policies are applied inconsistently.
It's a slot machine in aesthetics only. A klondike solitaire game is as much of a slot machine as this game - you shuffle the deck and hope that the order of the cards is just right that you're able to complete all of the foundations. You make occasional decisions along the way but it's ultimately just luck of the draw.
I would argue that this game has more agency and skill involved than your average klondike game, actually. Banning shit purely based on the aesthetics is really dumb, particularly when other games get away with having similar aesthetics in their games _including the one that is a direct rip-off of this one!_
Perhaps they are not, but it makes sense for them to keep their Iranian policies up to date so they can enter the country as soon as possible if they are allowed.
It seems to be a recurring case with app review processes that Apple and Google only review your app, and won't allow comparisons to be made to other apps.
From a game theory perspective, perhaps this makes sense, as any bargaining power that a successful app might have to come to a special agreement with Apple/Google is diminished if their app isn't in compliance.
I'm not discouraged when stuff like this happens because I hope it will piss people off enough to trigger a change in the current system, where Apple and Google dictate how people use their mobile computers. This kind of stuff will always happen until the fundamental structure changes.
I'd guess his app was reported by his competitors. If the author wants to make things fair he'll need to report the other apps and have them investigated under the same policies.
This game's primary mechanic is decision making and deck-building. There is no wagering or gambling of money real or otherwise. Only someone grossly misinformed could consider this game gambling, and by their logic would disqualify all games that had any elements of randomness.
I did a double take when I saw this title on the front page of Hacker News. I didn't think it was super well known and I just started playing it again. I hate gambling in games more than anything, and it kills me to see 2K continue to get away with literal slot machines and roulettes, with real money and given an "E" for "Everyone" by a group that is run by a lot of these triple-A board members.
Do they know that you don't even actually put money in the slot machine to spin it? The only money you spend in the game is paid to the titular infernal rent seeker.
> "Apps that simulate gambling, or games of chance or skill that are conducive to gambling are prohibited in the above locales."
This is such a strange decision. I know that this game has no microtransactions, actual gambling or any other forms of monetization, outside of paying to purchase this game. Does this mean that any games where chance plays a major role are off-limits? Or is it the slot machine-like appearance?
What I wonder is, are gacha games still available in these regions? They seem to be a lot more resembling of actual gambling, but few places appeared interested in regulating them.
autokad|2 years ago
>According to Google, the app "contains content that doesn't comply with the Gambling policy."
> It should go without saying that I 100% disagree with this decision. Luck be a Landlord does not violate any gambling policy that Google has in their terms of service.
I don't think its saying it violates google's gambling policy, it violates the gambling policy of those countries
paulddraper|2 years ago
FYI for future reference, countries' policies are more commonly referred to as "Laws."
jermaustin1|2 years ago
gwbas1c|2 years ago
The problem is with Google's inconsistent appeals process, not with the laws of those countries.
barbazoo|2 years ago
> Luck be a Landlord is a roguelike deckbuilder about using a slot machine to earn rent money and defeat capitalism. This game does not contain any real-world currency gambling or microtransactions.
harrisonjackson|2 years ago
Did they slip by a reviewer that didn't care? Did they use their "VC" illuminati connections? Are they such a big player the rules don't apply? It doesn't really matter or have anything to do with getting YOUR app released and the reviewer you are talking to will most likely ignore that completely.
Your best bet is to remove or change the mechanic if possible, resubmit, and then add it back in during a future update if you feel strongly about it.
It is possible those other apps have something that allows them to keep it... and by communicating nicely and earnestly with your reviewer you might find a way to skirt the rules, if a way exists. For us, it was frequently tweaking copy or TOS or other minor changes that allowed us to release an app with only superficial changes that the initial review made it seem like we were totally screwed. I do get the instinct to just say FU though.
gorkish|2 years ago
It is perfectly proper to make this point to HN readers and the general public who know nothing about the situation. It absolutely is relevant that Google do not appear to be applying their policies in a consistent and fair manner and as such are haphazardly fulfilling their consumer promise of operating "safe and secure" app stores.
Spilling conflict into the public sphere is the new way to "turbo" unreasonable disagreements these days. Everyone does it from cable and satellite companies down to individuals getting shit on by a corporate behemoth. Though I find it distasteful, so long as it keeps working, people will keep doing it.
charlieyu1|2 years ago
Brian_K_White|2 years ago
Animals must live with the environment as it is. Humans modify their environment to suit them.
It's ok to be fatalist for yourself. There is no valid reason to try to tell anyone else to be.
echelon|2 years ago
Tell your legislators that Google and Apple need to open up to web installs. To make them first class, with no hurdles and no scare tactics.
In order to help facilitate this, open up devices to other stores from the moment of device activation - Google Play should be on iPhone, App Store should be on Android, etc. And build proper first-party browser support for "this website has an app, click to install".
If a customer knows about you and wants you, they should be able to grab you from your website. Or another marketplace.
The App Store system as it stands today is perverse and draconian.
johndhi|2 years ago
Almost certainly Google has received pressure from these countries on this issue and their business there is more important to google than your single app. Google likely isn't being unreasonable - but the governments of these countries are. Sorry.
fishtoaster|2 years ago
I don't know if it'll work in this case, since google's argument ("this contains a slot simulator and some countries don't like that") isn't too egregious, but I can't really fault the dev. When the faceless review process fails, this sort of public appeal has worked before.
paulddraper|2 years ago
Okay fair enough. What is going to change much?
tspike|2 years ago
DrFlipper|2 years ago
It looks so boring. I can't tell if the reviewers proclaiming this as an "innovation" in the "roguelike" (?) genre are trolling or not. It's an ugly slot machine game where you click a buttonn to spin. This would have been uninspired trash in 1993. What am I missing?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1404850/Luck_be_a_Landlor...
sirbranedamuj|2 years ago
I adore this game and I tell everyone I can about it.
tetha|2 years ago
The main appeal is: You accumulate symbols into your deck, and the slotmachine arranges a random selection of your symbols up to 20ish (don't recall 100%) onto a 4x5 grid. Afterwards, symbols interact with symbols, combos happen and it just becomes funny to make a couple hundred thousand gold in a single spin. This is very similar to the fun of having an engine go off in dominion.
And then that appeal changes as you realize that there is very little luck necessary in the game. If you try hard, you can get win streaks at highest ascension levels. If you learn the different combos beyond the obvious ones, the weird interactions you can have with items and essences and so on.
It takes some 3-4 runs to appreciate the depth the game actually has. And then the fun begins.
bakies|2 years ago
bubblematrix|2 years ago
LMHallucination|2 years ago
npinsker|2 years ago
paxys|2 years ago
viktorcode|2 years ago
sirbranedamuj|2 years ago
I would argue that this game has more agency and skill involved than your average klondike game, actually. Banning shit purely based on the aesthetics is really dumb, particularly when other games get away with having similar aesthetics in their games _including the one that is a direct rip-off of this one!_
voytec|2 years ago
exac|2 years ago
exac|2 years ago
From a game theory perspective, perhaps this makes sense, as any bargaining power that a successful app might have to come to a special agreement with Apple/Google is diminished if their app isn't in compliance.
ryandrake|2 years ago
benatkin|2 years ago
nxjwixisuxh|2 years ago
The outrage is unwarranted imho. The app in question looks like a slot machine and that’s the core game mechanic.
jd24|2 years ago
settyness|2 years ago
I did a double take when I saw this title on the front page of Hacker News. I didn't think it was super well known and I just started playing it again. I hate gambling in games more than anything, and it kills me to see 2K continue to get away with literal slot machines and roulettes, with real money and given an "E" for "Everyone" by a group that is run by a lot of these triple-A board members.
tmcd2k|2 years ago
froggit|2 years ago
Add something along the lines of "so badass it's illegal in 13 countries" to the description and watch sales skyrocket. People love banned stuff.
newobj|2 years ago
Do they know that you don't even actually put money in the slot machine to spin it? The only money you spend in the game is paid to the titular infernal rent seeker.
Anyway, it's a brilliant game.
blooalien|2 years ago
tavavex|2 years ago
This is such a strange decision. I know that this game has no microtransactions, actual gambling or any other forms of monetization, outside of paying to purchase this game. Does this mean that any games where chance plays a major role are off-limits? Or is it the slot machine-like appearance?
What I wonder is, are gacha games still available in these regions? They seem to be a lot more resembling of actual gambling, but few places appeared interested in regulating them.
butz|2 years ago
camdenlock|2 years ago
notacoward|2 years ago
Ding ding ding! There's your explanation for you.
hyperhello|2 years ago