The google way of doing things is not of my liking either. I wouldn’t blame Beamdog though. Their games still work, it’s only hairsplitting that keeps their games from being downloaded. It’s available in Apple’s stores - and I don’t think that Apple’s legal department is less strict than Google’s.
Imo it’s just google’s way of showing that there are taking action on an issue where they have been very lax. And now they are just dispensing random punishment to show their commitment... because they can
I don't want the games anymore, so since Beamdog and Google took my money and then took the apps back, all is fine right?
:: sigh ::
Do you have any idea how many games I have (well, had - I gave them away) that I used to love, no longer play, and never got a refund for? It filled a large paper box and represented I don't even want to think about it dollars.
Come on dude, seriously.
I love all my games and I would never give them away, physical or otherwise. Except to my kids perhaps.
The google way of doing things is not of my liking either. I wouldn’t blame Beamdog though. Their games still work, it’s only hairsplitting that keeps their games from being downloaded. It’s available in Apple’s stores - and I don’t think that Apple’s legal department is less strict than Google’s.
Imo it’s just google’s way of showing that there are taking action on an issue where they have been very lax. And now they are just dispensing random punishment to show their commitment... because they can
According to the email jimmytiel reposted, this wasn't done at random. (Emphasis mine)
more from google:
"Thank you for writing back to us.
I have looked into your request and escalated to our specialists and got an update in this regard.
Please note that once an app is removed from the store, there's no way to report the app.
Also please note that due to reports on the app we have already removed the app.
Also please be informed that there's no reason to report an app after it is removed.
Appreciate your understanding in this process.
We regret for any inconvenience caused to you in this regard.
Thanks!
Leo N
The Google Support Team"
Somebody had reported BGIIEE and IWDEE to google, presumably for not being compliant with the GDPR (the evidence of this is the fact that BG1EE and PSTEE are still on the Play Store), and Google's response was to take it off the store until the problem was fixed.
The situation with the BGII:EE & IWD:EE removal from Google Play and a timeline for finally fixing this (for all the games) will be clarified in the next blog entry next week.
I don't want the games anymore, so since Beamdog and Google took my money and then took the apps back, all is fine right?
:: sigh ::
Do you have any idea how many games I have (well, had - I gave them away) that I used to love, no longer play, and never got a refund for? It filled a large paper box and represented I don't even want to think about it dollars.
Come on dude, seriously.
I love all my games and I would never give them away, physical or otherwise. Except to my kids perhaps.
Yeah, it was tough. However, I have a daughter, and she had zero interest - never mind the trick of trying to assemble a Windows98 PC capable of playing some of them. I had original copies of Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, Stunts, several of the old original flight sims (even the MS space sim), Sim City 2000, X-wing vs Tie Fighter, etc. Some of those required careful tweaking of the memory map and himem.sys just to get them to load.
I think I managed to get a couple of them to *start* in a VM once, but it wasn't pretty.
As an aside, I don't disagree with anyone about Google. I am way over Google, and I think they probably need to be broken up. Between the corporate ADHD, complete lack of respect for their "customers", and general inability to get their act together, I've lost that lovin' feeling.
I just can't get past how restricted iOS feels, or I would switch in a heartbeat. For all its faults, Android, when used with open-source and quality apps, is a better fit. Which, for the most part, means sticking with the Play store, even when I'd rather tell Google where to stick it.
Heads up for developers
Subject: Losing Proof of purchase(history) on GPlay.
Hello Beamdog team,
I emailed you some time ago about losing games on GPlay forever, and I was worried that BG2/IWD would suffer the same fate. I lost Spacechem and Ironclad Tactics as well, made my the genius Zachtronic dev. He had his devpage removed from store and without warning, GPlay removed the game's from people's account as well.
Fortunately I still had my proof of purchase in my purchase history, so I could convince Zach to help me out. He was not aware of GPlay removing his game from people's library as well.
But today I noticed that Spacechem got even removed from my purchase history as well, Ironclad Tactics is still there but for how long? Which leaves me with 0 proof for Spacechem. I am worried for what GPlay has planned for the lots of other games I/people own.
My suggestion would be to, once BG2 and IWD come back, start selling the games from the official Beamdog store. Ask people who already own your games on GPlay for proof of purchase history and move them to Beamdog store.
GPlay is a big mess and it's clear their store is built around making profit only. It lacks user convenience, service, feedback and decent communication, having owned content removed without even a warning and in worst case, even tampering with customer's purchase history so there is no way you can ever prove a developer you paid for the mobile game.
I hope you keep it in mind for future mobile Beamdog games. Your games are a must have for mobile, it's perfect, but stores like GPlay don't care about fair customer support.
One tip: Asmodee devs (digital board game publisher) use an Asmodee account that is linked to Steam and records which game you own there. You can link your mobile device to the account as well, so it can check if you already own games on Steam.
If you can manage to sell the mobile version on Steam, then all you need is to create a Beamdog account system, and a place where we can download a Free mobile trial/demo version of your game, which will be upgraded to full version once you link the game to the Beamdog (--> Steam) account. In this way you avoid people doing illegal stuff, and there's no more worries about GPlay being a greedy jerk.
I feel sorry for larian studios. They have this amazing chance to expand the Baldur's gate world but have to follow in the steps of Beamdog. I've lost all faith in beamdog since this mess, Its a real shame that you own rights to some amazing games.
I feel Larian studios should count them selves lucky. They don’t have to revive a game long forgotten, but have to do a sequel to a game that has already been brought to mobile and consoles in a while.
Actually the game is so popular that a stampede on the website of the supplier of the first two games is at hand because the games are missing.
If they just get a hold on Google they have a real winning hand.
Larian is just using the city of Baldur's Gate as a setting. While they may reference the older story, it doesn't appear that it will play much of a role in it. IIRC, BG involved mostly scum and doppelgangers, not mind flayers.
What would be interesting is to see if they somehow work in a reference to the mind flayer compound in Athkatla, but I kind of doubt it. I wonder how many people made the connection and found them in the first place?
The situation with the BGII:EE & IWD:EE removal from Google Play and a timeline for finally fixing this (for all the games) will be clarified in the next blog entry next week.
With the 2.6 update, our Android players will also be happy to hear that we’ve finally resolved our issues on Google Play, so you’ll be back online with 2.6, as soon as we can finish verifying the stability of the builds.
There were some questions about what exactly happened with Google Play, so let me shed some light on the situation. The short version is, what caused the issue was that we included a crash reporting tool in our games that would basically send emergency error reports to us in the event of app crashes so that we could gather telemetry and hopefully fix problems even without crash reports.
Unfortunately, that crash reporting software gathered this data using a Google Play Service called AdvertisingID, which tracks information about your phone’s hardware specs - really valuable in crash reporting, but unfortunately also subject to Google’s new policy on disclosure of data gathering, which meant we had to implement a message in-game describing basically what I just wrote above, or take it out. We did some evaluation, and decided to remove it in its entirety, so that’s all gone now.
That work was fairly trivial, but what unfortunately wasn’t trivial was that the build pipeline we used for all of the IE games on Google Play since we released 2.5 was deprecated, and we had to basically rebuild the project for our IE titles on Android entirely before we would be able to even resubmit. There used to be 3 ways to build for Android - all Google-approved, but the one we were using lost out when they decided to switch over, and now everything has to go through Android Studio. The silver lining being that thanks to this update, we’ve also updated to 64-bit and API level 26, which was necessary to stay listed on Google Play when it eventually removes support for 32-bit apps. We’re almost at the end of that road, and once we’ve verified that everything’s in good shape, we can QA it, and hopefully get it to you within the next few weeks.
Sorry for the time it took to get that all to you - but now that we’re both compliant with Google’s data collection rules, and updated to 64-bit, we shouldn’t run into any further issues when Google stops supporting 32-bit apps later this year (fingers crossed).
TL;DR: 2.6 is coming out on Google Play posthaste, including the re-release of Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition on Android. Other platforms also inbound. Shouldn’t be too long.
A lot of work actually did get done. If all goes as planned, it will be nearly worth the wait. Between Google being a total bitch, and Beamdog Taking a small eternity to accomplish it(again it does seem to be a lot), i fear the damage may take awhile to heal.
In all fairness the stampede on this site has perhaps been a bit less severe than it seems. If one looks at the accounts that have been banned, the wording of the posts and the amount of posts from the banens accounts there seems to be a pattern the way I see it.
But for the sake of the community (modders, testers, artists and the like), we all have a common responsibility to make this work. This place is awesome for so many reasons beside news about patches and bug fixing. I hope we all can work on keeping this site as great as it can be - we reap what we sow.
A problem happened with certain links between Google Play and our store pages not working. Now we have to do a whole new build/submission to get the games back up. This is a bit difficult at the moment (for the same reason the 2.6 patch has been delayed). Right at this moment I'm afraid it will take more than a few weeks.
We're currently working to resolve the issue with Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition being removed from the Google Play store. The issue is related to a condition in Google Play that now requires in-game privacy policies, rather than allowing apps to link to privacy policies. We're building an update that will make sure these games comply with the in-game privacy policy, but this may take some time. We apologize for the inconvenience this has created for our Google Play customers. Our goal is to get these games back into your library as soon as possible.
If you have downloaded the games you should still have access to them. If you have not downloaded the games, they should reappear in your purchases once the issue is resolved. Those who wish to seek refunds will need to request this through Google Play support.
We'll keep you posted about updates as soon as we can. In the meantime, we thank you for your feedback and understanding.
Ok, there're reasons Beamdog doesn't give ETAs usually. I gave you one last week and turns out we couldn't make it.
We ran into additional issues and believe we won't be able to fix it till July. Sorry, all.
There was something that prevented new builds from happening, then this something was fixed. We are working on the issue but couldn't make it till yesterday.
With the 2.6 update, our Android players will also be happy to hear that we’ve finally resolved our issues on Google Play, so you’ll be back online with 2.6, as soon as we can finish verifying the stability of the builds.
There were some questions about what exactly happened with Google Play, so let me shed some light on the situation. The short version is, what caused the issue was that we included a crash reporting tool in our games that would basically send emergency error reports to us in the event of app crashes so that we could gather telemetry and hopefully fix problems even without crash reports.
Unfortunately, that crash reporting software gathered this data using a Google Play Service called AdvertisingID, which tracks information about your phone’s hardware specs - really valuable in crash reporting, but unfortunately also subject to Google’s new policy on disclosure of data gathering, which meant we had to implement a message in-game describing basically what I just wrote above, or take it out. We did some evaluation, and decided to remove it in its entirety, so that’s all gone now.
That work was fairly trivial, but what unfortunately wasn’t trivial was that the build pipeline we used for all of the IE games on Google Play since we released 2.5 was deprecated, and we had to basically rebuild the project for our IE titles on Android entirely before we would be able to even resubmit. There used to be 3 ways to build for Android - all Google-approved, but the one we were using lost out when they decided to switch over, and now everything has to go through Android Studio. The silver lining being that thanks to this update, we’ve also updated to 64-bit and API level 26, which was necessary to stay listed on Google Play when it eventually removes support for 32-bit apps. We’re almost at the end of that road, and once we’ve verified that everything’s in good shape, we can QA it, and hopefully get it to you within the next few weeks.
Sorry for the time it took to get that all to you - but now that we’re both compliant with Google’s data collection rules, and updated to 64-bit, we shouldn’t run into any further issues when Google stops supporting 32-bit apps later this year (fingers crossed).
First it was caused by links between your store and google play, then it was due to not having an in game privacy policies and now you add the extra bit of info about your crash reporting software.
The issue has been your poor communication around this issue. It should not of taken 3 months for you to communicate the actual reasons behind this. Rather than have an open conversation with your customers, you decided to drip-feed us lies or half-truths.
Had you communicated properly from the start or even shared on a more regular basis what steps you were taking to fix the issue, I believe that most of the vitriol could of been avoided. Instead you have caused existing customers to lose faith in Beamdog and potentially turned away future customers. I'm sure you have kept a close eye on the spike of 1 star reviews that Beamdog games are getting, which are related your poor effort in communication.
Its good news that you have finally sorted this out and have a plan in place to restore the purchases that we have made but your credibility as a developer has taken a hit due to your communication style. I personally won't ever support another game developed or associated with Beamdog. Its unfortunate that I can't get a refund because I don't want anything that links me to you in anyway.
That work was fairly trivial, but what unfortunately wasn’t trivial was that the build pipeline we used for all of the IE games on Google Play since we released 2.5 was deprecated, and we had to basically rebuild the project for our IE titles on Android entirely before we would be able to even resubmit. There used to be 3 ways to build for Android - all Google-approved, but the one we were using lost out when they decided to switch over, and now everything has to go through Android Studio.
Jesus Christ. What an absurd and pointless delay. The whole thing was an obscure technical blockade imposed by some incredibly inflexible Google policy.
No wonder Beamdog has been so hobbled. They didn't just have to tweak the code and resubmit; they had to rebuild the damn thing.
And then Google lets Beamdog take the fall for Google's own policy. It's ridiculous.
In all fairness the stampede on this site has perhaps been a bit less severe than it seems. If one looks at the accounts that have been banned, the wording of the posts and the amount of posts from the banens accounts there seems to be a pattern the way I see it.
Some of those accounts weren't even different people. At least one banned user actually created a string of duplicate accounts just to spam the forum.
In all fairness the stampede on this site has perhaps been a bit less severe than it seems. If one looks at the accounts that have been banned, the wording of the posts and the amount of posts from the banens accounts there seems to be a pattern the way I see it.
Some of those accounts weren't even different people. At least one banned user actually created a string of duplicate accounts just to spam the forum.
I have known it for a while and have suspected it even longer.
I ended up writing a PM to Julius Borisov because I thought I saw the ghost of Roxanne...
it wasnt Roxanne off course, but it just felt so similar
To be honest, I'm not looking forward to the mind flayers. Their psionic powers really mess with the usual balance.
The whole wanting-to-turn-my-party-into-an-all-you-can-eat-brain-brunch-buffet doesn't sit well with me, either.
@semiticgod and @StummvonBordwehr I kind of figured it was the same person, as well. His posting style and the text he used was a clear indication of it. That, and the fact he advocated the illegal downloading of his games in every single comment he posted. Thank you for reading, and happy gaming to all.
With the 2.6 update, our Android players will also be happy to hear that we’ve finally resolved our issues on Google Play, so you’ll be back online with 2.6, as soon as we can finish verifying the stability of the builds.
There were some questions about what exactly happened with Google Play, so let me shed some light on the situation. The short version is, what caused the issue was that we included a crash reporting tool in our games that would basically send emergency error reports to us in the event of app crashes so that we could gather telemetry and hopefully fix problems even without crash reports.
Unfortunately, that crash reporting software gathered this data using a Google Play Service called AdvertisingID, which tracks information about your phone’s hardware specs - really valuable in crash reporting, but unfortunately also subject to Google’s new policy on disclosure of data gathering, which meant we had to implement a message in-game describing basically what I just wrote above, or take it out. We did some evaluation, and decided to remove it in its entirety, so that’s all gone now.
That work was fairly trivial, but what unfortunately wasn’t trivial was that the build pipeline we used for all of the IE games on Google Play since we released 2.5 was deprecated, and we had to basically rebuild the project for our IE titles on Android entirely before we would be able to even resubmit. There used to be 3 ways to build for Android - all Google-approved, but the one we were using lost out when they decided to switch over, and now everything has to go through Android Studio. The silver lining being that thanks to this update, we’ve also updated to 64-bit and API level 26, which was necessary to stay listed on Google Play when it eventually removes support for 32-bit apps. We’re almost at the end of that road, and once we’ve verified that everything’s in good shape, we can QA it, and hopefully get it to you within the next few weeks.
Sorry for the time it took to get that all to you - but now that we’re both compliant with Google’s data collection rules, and updated to 64-bit, we shouldn’t run into any further issues when Google stops supporting 32-bit apps later this year (fingers crossed).
TL;DR: 2.6 is coming out on Google Play posthaste, including the re-release of Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition on Android. Other platforms also inbound. Shouldn’t be too long.
That's great News @JuliusBorisov ! The question is: will the Android version requirement change in this new build?
A problem happened with certain links between Google Play and our store pages not working. Now we have to do a whole new build/submission to get the games back up. This is a bit difficult at the moment (for the same reason the 2.6 patch has been delayed). Right at this moment I'm afraid it will take more than a few weeks.
We're currently working to resolve the issue with Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition being removed from the Google Play store. The issue is related to a condition in Google Play that now requires in-game privacy policies, rather than allowing apps to link to privacy policies. We're building an update that will make sure these games comply with the in-game privacy policy, but this may take some time. We apologize for the inconvenience this has created for our Google Play customers. Our goal is to get these games back into your library as soon as possible.
If you have downloaded the games you should still have access to them. If you have not downloaded the games, they should reappear in your purchases once the issue is resolved. Those who wish to seek refunds will need to request this through Google Play support.
We'll keep you posted about updates as soon as we can. In the meantime, we thank you for your feedback and understanding.
Ok, there're reasons Beamdog doesn't give ETAs usually. I gave you one last week and turns out we couldn't make it.
We ran into additional issues and believe we won't be able to fix it till July. Sorry, all.
There was something that prevented new builds from happening, then this something was fixed. We are working on the issue but couldn't make it till yesterday.
With the 2.6 update, our Android players will also be happy to hear that we’ve finally resolved our issues on Google Play, so you’ll be back online with 2.6, as soon as we can finish verifying the stability of the builds.
There were some questions about what exactly happened with Google Play, so let me shed some light on the situation. The short version is, what caused the issue was that we included a crash reporting tool in our games that would basically send emergency error reports to us in the event of app crashes so that we could gather telemetry and hopefully fix problems even without crash reports.
Unfortunately, that crash reporting software gathered this data using a Google Play Service called AdvertisingID, which tracks information about your phone’s hardware specs - really valuable in crash reporting, but unfortunately also subject to Google’s new policy on disclosure of data gathering, which meant we had to implement a message in-game describing basically what I just wrote above, or take it out. We did some evaluation, and decided to remove it in its entirety, so that’s all gone now.
That work was fairly trivial, but what unfortunately wasn’t trivial was that the build pipeline we used for all of the IE games on Google Play since we released 2.5 was deprecated, and we had to basically rebuild the project for our IE titles on Android entirely before we would be able to even resubmit. There used to be 3 ways to build for Android - all Google-approved, but the one we were using lost out when they decided to switch over, and now everything has to go through Android Studio. The silver lining being that thanks to this update, we’ve also updated to 64-bit and API level 26, which was necessary to stay listed on Google Play when it eventually removes support for 32-bit apps. We’re almost at the end of that road, and once we’ve verified that everything’s in good shape, we can QA it, and hopefully get it to you within the next few weeks.
Sorry for the time it took to get that all to you - but now that we’re both compliant with Google’s data collection rules, and updated to 64-bit, we shouldn’t run into any further issues when Google stops supporting 32-bit apps later this year (fingers crossed).
First it was caused by links between your store and google play, then it was due to not having an in game privacy policies and now you add the extra bit of info about your crash reporting software.
The issue has been your poor communication around this issue. It should not of taken 3 months for you to communicate the actual reasons behind this. Rather than have an open conversation with your customers, you decided to drip-feed us lies or half-truths.
Had you communicated properly from the start or even shared on a more regular basis what steps you were taking to fix the issue, I believe that most of the vitriol could of been avoided. Instead you have caused existing customers to lose faith in Beamdog and potentially turned away future customers. I'm sure you have kept a close eye on the spike of 1 star reviews that Beamdog games are getting, which are related your poor effort in communication.
Its good news that you have finally sorted this out and have a plan in place to restore the purchases that we have made but your credibility as a developer has taken a hit due to your communication style. I personally won't ever support another game developed or associated with Beamdog. Its unfortunate that I can't get a refund because I don't want anything that links me to you in anyway.
THREE LETTERS
NDA
All communications like this blog post have to go through WotC. They couldn't say anything until they got their approval. There was probably a back and forth between the AdvertisingID before they decided to gut it.
And my god. Let's blame developers for your poor choice of platform. I sure hope you have the exact same scorn for Google and you took a sledgehammer to your phone after you typed that response. I have been enjoying both games immensely on both my iPhone and laptop throughout this entire ordeal.
A problem happened with certain links between Google Play and our store pages not working. Now we have to do a whole new build/submission to get the games back up. This is a bit difficult at the moment (for the same reason the 2.6 patch has been delayed). Right at this moment I'm afraid it will take more than a few weeks.
We're currently working to resolve the issue with Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition being removed from the Google Play store. The issue is related to a condition in Google Play that now requires in-game privacy policies, rather than allowing apps to link to privacy policies. We're building an update that will make sure these games comply with the in-game privacy policy, but this may take some time. We apologize for the inconvenience this has created for our Google Play customers. Our goal is to get these games back into your library as soon as possible.
If you have downloaded the games you should still have access to them. If you have not downloaded the games, they should reappear in your purchases once the issue is resolved. Those who wish to seek refunds will need to request this through Google Play support.
We'll keep you posted about updates as soon as we can. In the meantime, we thank you for your feedback and understanding.
Ok, there're reasons Beamdog doesn't give ETAs usually. I gave you one last week and turns out we couldn't make it.
We ran into additional issues and believe we won't be able to fix it till July. Sorry, all.
There was something that prevented new builds from happening, then this something was fixed. We are working on the issue but couldn't make it till yesterday.
With the 2.6 update, our Android players will also be happy to hear that we’ve finally resolved our issues on Google Play, so you’ll be back online with 2.6, as soon as we can finish verifying the stability of the builds.
There were some questions about what exactly happened with Google Play, so let me shed some light on the situation. The short version is, what caused the issue was that we included a crash reporting tool in our games that would basically send emergency error reports to us in the event of app crashes so that we could gather telemetry and hopefully fix problems even without crash reports.
Unfortunately, that crash reporting software gathered this data using a Google Play Service called AdvertisingID, which tracks information about your phone’s hardware specs - really valuable in crash reporting, but unfortunately also subject to Google’s new policy on disclosure of data gathering, which meant we had to implement a message in-game describing basically what I just wrote above, or take it out. We did some evaluation, and decided to remove it in its entirety, so that’s all gone now.
That work was fairly trivial, but what unfortunately wasn’t trivial was that the build pipeline we used for all of the IE games on Google Play since we released 2.5 was deprecated, and we had to basically rebuild the project for our IE titles on Android entirely before we would be able to even resubmit. There used to be 3 ways to build for Android - all Google-approved, but the one we were using lost out when they decided to switch over, and now everything has to go through Android Studio. The silver lining being that thanks to this update, we’ve also updated to 64-bit and API level 26, which was necessary to stay listed on Google Play when it eventually removes support for 32-bit apps. We’re almost at the end of that road, and once we’ve verified that everything’s in good shape, we can QA it, and hopefully get it to you within the next few weeks.
Sorry for the time it took to get that all to you - but now that we’re both compliant with Google’s data collection rules, and updated to 64-bit, we shouldn’t run into any further issues when Google stops supporting 32-bit apps later this year (fingers crossed).
First it was caused by links between your store and google play, then it was due to not having an in game privacy policies and now you add the extra bit of info about your crash reporting software.
The issue has been your poor communication around this issue. It should not of taken 3 months for you to communicate the actual reasons behind this. Rather than have an open conversation with your customers, you decided to drip-feed us lies or half-truths.
Had you communicated properly from the start or even shared on a more regular basis what steps you were taking to fix the issue, I believe that most of the vitriol could of been avoided. Instead you have caused existing customers to lose faith in Beamdog and potentially turned away future customers. I'm sure you have kept a close eye on the spike of 1 star reviews that Beamdog games are getting, which are related your poor effort in communication.
Its good news that you have finally sorted this out and have a plan in place to restore the purchases that we have made but your credibility as a developer has taken a hit due to your communication style. I personally won't ever support another game developed or associated with Beamdog. Its unfortunate that I can't get a refund because I don't want anything that links me to you in anyway.
THREE LETTERS
NDA
All communications like this blog post have to go through WotC. They couldn't say anything until they got their approval. There was probably a back and forth between the AdvertisingID before they decided to gut it.
And my god. Let's blame developers for your poor choice of platform. I sure hope you have the exact same scorn for Google and you took a sledgehammer to your phone after you typed that response. I have been enjoying both games immensely on both my iPhone and laptop throughout this entire ordeal.
NDA? they had an NDA with wotc for a non story technical update to a game? Sounds unlikely, do you have evidence for that?
Allegedly they've an agreement with wizards that limits the platform they can release on (allegedly) this apparently prevented them releasing an APK to their customers (though we had varying reasons for that through this Saga)
Also the developers chose to release on that "poor" platform, it's there responsibility to support it, they dont get to take consumers money then go "ha lol, sucks to be you"
I'm glad you enjoyed gaming during this ordeal, a lot of consumers couldn't and beamdogs communication had been dire the whole way through.
There's nothing in the EULA that prevents installing it on an external card, as long as your not running multiple copies of the game at once, backing up your software is legit.
However because the game seems to check in with Google play on its first bootup, unless you've run the game once on your device it might not work?
All communications like this blog post have to go through WotC. They couldn't say anything until they got their approval. There was probably a back and forth between the AdvertisingID before they decided to gut it.
And my god. Let's blame developers for your poor choice of platform. I sure hope you have the exact same scorn for Google and you took a sledgehammer to your phone after you typed that response. I have been enjoying both games immensely on both my iPhone and laptop throughout this entire ordeal.
An NDA isn't going to prevent them from all forms of communicating. Even if they said 'we are under an NDA and can't discuss this part but we plan to talk about X on this date' would of been fine. Some actual communication is better than the drip-feeding they did.
Yes I can blame the developer. They offered the game on Google Play, I bought it to play on Google Play, They didn't keep the game compliant with the requirements of Google Play. My transaction is with them, not with Google Play.
Its not like Google did a last minute massive change. The law changes had been discussed for months before they came in. It was up to Beamdog to ensure that the services they deliver are compliant with law changes.
All communications like this blog post have to go through WotC. They couldn't say anything until they got their approval. There was probably a back and forth between the AdvertisingID before they decided to gut it.
And my god. Let's blame developers for your poor choice of platform. I sure hope you have the exact same scorn for Google and you took a sledgehammer to your phone after you typed that response. I have been enjoying both games immensely on both my iPhone and laptop throughout this entire ordeal.
An NDA isn't going to prevent them from all forms of communicating. Even if they said 'we are under an NDA and can't discuss this part but we plan to talk about X on this date' would of been fine. Some actual communication is better than the drip-feeding they did.
Yes I can blame the developer. They offered the game on Google Play, I bought it to play on Google Play, They didn't keep the game compliant with the requirements of Google Play. My transaction is with them, not with Google Play.
Its not like Google did a last minute massive change. The law changes had been discussed for months before they came in. It was up to Beamdog to ensure that the services they deliver are compliant with law changes.
Technical point of order, the initial transaction is with google play as the store front, once its out of the 2 month period, the requirement to support and refund the game devolves to the developer under G-plays ts and cs.
Other than that, agree!
And I very much doubt they were under a NDA with WOTC
No. We looked into that during the road to 2.5. The maximum this engine allows (without breaking the game) is moving the .exe to an SD card (which you can do).
Re/all
We have communicated things to you when we got a chance. The situation with the broken build process had happened in December 2018, and only now we could share about it.
I remember insinuating and even outright claiming that you were bound by NDAs in this due to the resemblance this situation had to the Atari Bankruptcy. Never did get confirmation on that, by the way, which is odd since normally you're given enough leeway to state "we're under a non-disclosure agreement and can't share that information at this time."
Comments
I agree on almost everything.
The google way of doing things is not of my liking either. I wouldn’t blame Beamdog though. Their games still work, it’s only hairsplitting that keeps their games from being downloaded. It’s available in Apple’s stores - and I don’t think that Apple’s legal department is less strict than Google’s.
Imo it’s just google’s way of showing that there are taking action on an issue where they have been very lax. And now they are just dispensing random punishment to show their commitment... because they can
I love all my games and I would never give them away, physical or otherwise. Except to my kids perhaps.
According to the email jimmytiel reposted, this wasn't done at random. (Emphasis mine)
Somebody had reported BGIIEE and IWDEE to google, presumably for not being compliant with the GDPR (the evidence of this is the fact that BG1EE and PSTEE are still on the Play Store), and Google's response was to take it off the store until the problem was fixed.
Yeah, it was tough. However, I have a daughter, and she had zero interest - never mind the trick of trying to assemble a Windows98 PC capable of playing some of them. I had original copies of Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, Stunts, several of the old original flight sims (even the MS space sim), Sim City 2000, X-wing vs Tie Fighter, etc. Some of those required careful tweaking of the memory map and himem.sys just to get them to load.
I think I managed to get a couple of them to *start* in a VM once, but it wasn't pretty.
I just can't get past how restricted iOS feels, or I would switch in a heartbeat. For all its faults, Android, when used with open-source and quality apps, is a better fit. Which, for the most part, means sticking with the Play store, even when I'd rather tell Google where to stick it.
Subject: Losing Proof of purchase(history) on GPlay.
Hello Beamdog team,
I emailed you some time ago about losing games on GPlay forever, and I was worried that BG2/IWD would suffer the same fate. I lost Spacechem and Ironclad Tactics as well, made my the genius Zachtronic dev. He had his devpage removed from store and without warning, GPlay removed the game's from people's account as well.
Fortunately I still had my proof of purchase in my purchase history, so I could convince Zach to help me out. He was not aware of GPlay removing his game from people's library as well.
But today I noticed that Spacechem got even removed from my purchase history as well, Ironclad Tactics is still there but for how long? Which leaves me with 0 proof for Spacechem. I am worried for what GPlay has planned for the lots of other games I/people own.
My suggestion would be to, once BG2 and IWD come back, start selling the games from the official Beamdog store. Ask people who already own your games on GPlay for proof of purchase history and move them to Beamdog store.
GPlay is a big mess and it's clear their store is built around making profit only. It lacks user convenience, service, feedback and decent communication, having owned content removed without even a warning and in worst case, even tampering with customer's purchase history so there is no way you can ever prove a developer you paid for the mobile game.
I hope you keep it in mind for future mobile Beamdog games. Your games are a must have for mobile, it's perfect, but stores like GPlay don't care about fair customer support.
One tip: Asmodee devs (digital board game publisher) use an Asmodee account that is linked to Steam and records which game you own there. You can link your mobile device to the account as well, so it can check if you already own games on Steam.
If you can manage to sell the mobile version on Steam, then all you need is to create a Beamdog account system, and a place where we can download a Free mobile trial/demo version of your game, which will be upgraded to full version once you link the game to the Beamdog (--> Steam) account. In this way you avoid people doing illegal stuff, and there's no more worries about GPlay being a greedy jerk.
Actually the game is so popular that a stampede on the website of the supplier of the first two games is at hand because the games are missing.
If they just get a hold on Google they have a real winning hand.
What would be interesting is to see if they somehow work in a reference to the mind flayer compound in Athkatla, but I kind of doubt it. I wonder how many people made the connection and found them in the first place?
So, any news about this?
With the 2.6 update, our Android players will also be happy to hear that we’ve finally resolved our issues on Google Play, so you’ll be back online with 2.6, as soon as we can finish verifying the stability of the builds.
There were some questions about what exactly happened with Google Play, so let me shed some light on the situation. The short version is, what caused the issue was that we included a crash reporting tool in our games that would basically send emergency error reports to us in the event of app crashes so that we could gather telemetry and hopefully fix problems even without crash reports.
Unfortunately, that crash reporting software gathered this data using a Google Play Service called AdvertisingID, which tracks information about your phone’s hardware specs - really valuable in crash reporting, but unfortunately also subject to Google’s new policy on disclosure of data gathering, which meant we had to implement a message in-game describing basically what I just wrote above, or take it out. We did some evaluation, and decided to remove it in its entirety, so that’s all gone now.
That work was fairly trivial, but what unfortunately wasn’t trivial was that the build pipeline we used for all of the IE games on Google Play since we released 2.5 was deprecated, and we had to basically rebuild the project for our IE titles on Android entirely before we would be able to even resubmit. There used to be 3 ways to build for Android - all Google-approved, but the one we were using lost out when they decided to switch over, and now everything has to go through Android Studio. The silver lining being that thanks to this update, we’ve also updated to 64-bit and API level 26, which was necessary to stay listed on Google Play when it eventually removes support for 32-bit apps. We’re almost at the end of that road, and once we’ve verified that everything’s in good shape, we can QA it, and hopefully get it to you within the next few weeks.
Sorry for the time it took to get that all to you - but now that we’re both compliant with Google’s data collection rules, and updated to 64-bit, we shouldn’t run into any further issues when Google stops supporting 32-bit apps later this year (fingers crossed).
TL;DR: 2.6 is coming out on Google Play posthaste, including the re-release of Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition on Android. Other platforms also inbound. Shouldn’t be too long.
In all fairness the stampede on this site has perhaps been a bit less severe than it seems. If one looks at the accounts that have been banned, the wording of the posts and the amount of posts from the banens accounts there seems to be a pattern the way I see it.
But for the sake of the community (modders, testers, artists and the like), we all have a common responsibility to make this work. This place is awesome for so many reasons beside news about patches and bug fixing. I hope we all can work on keeping this site as great as it can be - we reap what we sow.
First it was caused by links between your store and google play, then it was due to not having an in game privacy policies and now you add the extra bit of info about your crash reporting software.
The issue has been your poor communication around this issue. It should not of taken 3 months for you to communicate the actual reasons behind this. Rather than have an open conversation with your customers, you decided to drip-feed us lies or half-truths.
Had you communicated properly from the start or even shared on a more regular basis what steps you were taking to fix the issue, I believe that most of the vitriol could of been avoided. Instead you have caused existing customers to lose faith in Beamdog and potentially turned away future customers. I'm sure you have kept a close eye on the spike of 1 star reviews that Beamdog games are getting, which are related your poor effort in communication.
Its good news that you have finally sorted this out and have a plan in place to restore the purchases that we have made but your credibility as a developer has taken a hit due to your communication style. I personally won't ever support another game developed or associated with Beamdog. Its unfortunate that I can't get a refund because I don't want anything that links me to you in anyway.
No wonder Beamdog has been so hobbled. They didn't just have to tweak the code and resubmit; they had to rebuild the damn thing.
And then Google lets Beamdog take the fall for Google's own policy. It's ridiculous.
I have known it for a while and have suspected it even longer.
I ended up writing a PM to Julius Borisov because I thought I saw the ghost of Roxanne...
it wasnt Roxanne off course, but it just felt so similar
The whole wanting-to-turn-my-party-into-an-all-you-can-eat-brain-brunch-buffet doesn't sit well with me, either.
@semiticgod and @StummvonBordwehr I kind of figured it was the same person, as well. His posting style and the text he used was a clear indication of it. That, and the fact he advocated the illegal downloading of his games in every single comment he posted. Thank you for reading, and happy gaming to all.
That's great News @JuliusBorisov ! The question is: will the Android version requirement change in this new build?
Thanks.
THREE LETTERS
NDA
All communications like this blog post have to go through WotC. They couldn't say anything until they got their approval. There was probably a back and forth between the AdvertisingID before they decided to gut it.
And my god. Let's blame developers for your poor choice of platform. I sure hope you have the exact same scorn for Google and you took a sledgehammer to your phone after you typed that response. I have been enjoying both games immensely on both my iPhone and laptop throughout this entire ordeal.
NDA? they had an NDA with wotc for a non story technical update to a game? Sounds unlikely, do you have evidence for that?
Allegedly they've an agreement with wizards that limits the platform they can release on (allegedly) this apparently prevented them releasing an APK to their customers (though we had varying reasons for that through this Saga)
Also the developers chose to release on that "poor" platform, it's there responsibility to support it, they dont get to take consumers money then go "ha lol, sucks to be you"
I'm glad you enjoyed gaming during this ordeal, a lot of consumers couldn't and beamdogs communication had been dire the whole way through.
There's nothing in the EULA that prevents installing it on an external card, as long as your not running multiple copies of the game at once, backing up your software is legit.
However because the game seems to check in with Google play on its first bootup, unless you've run the game once on your device it might not work?
An NDA isn't going to prevent them from all forms of communicating. Even if they said 'we are under an NDA and can't discuss this part but we plan to talk about X on this date' would of been fine. Some actual communication is better than the drip-feeding they did.
Yes I can blame the developer. They offered the game on Google Play, I bought it to play on Google Play, They didn't keep the game compliant with the requirements of Google Play. My transaction is with them, not with Google Play.
Its not like Google did a last minute massive change. The law changes had been discussed for months before they came in. It was up to Beamdog to ensure that the services they deliver are compliant with law changes.
Technical point of order, the initial transaction is with google play as the store front, once its out of the 2 month period, the requirement to support and refund the game devolves to the developer under G-plays ts and cs.
Other than that, agree!
And I very much doubt they were under a NDA with WOTC
No. We looked into that during the road to 2.5. The maximum this engine allows (without breaking the game) is moving the .exe to an SD card (which you can do).
Re/all
We have communicated things to you when we got a chance. The situation with the broken build process had happened in December 2018, and only now we could share about it.