Injustice Google Play, like a good life experience

Where to begin? It was 2014, we were 2nd year students (PNRPU and ITMO), we studied in about proger specialties. In the past - just classmates, in general - good friends. Probably, everyone felt a feeling when you just learned the basics of programming, and you already dreamed and made plans about how you would write a program and earn millions. We are no exception.

Without thinking twice, we decided that we would be doing an Android application, since both had no knowledge of Java , and the very concept of “lay out and quote a price” warmed our pockets very much. I think everyone already perfectly understood / laughed at our naivety, but then we did not realize it.

The first thing we encountered was of course the idea. In order to come up with this, so that it is relatively simple to implement, is it possible for us and interesting not only for us? We both were fans of Ferrari , without hesitation, we decided that we are not alone. But it would be advisable not to invent your NFS or Asphalt . We stopped at the idea of logo quiz 'a, but very thematic, namely: guessing / guessing the models of cars of the legendary brand from the photo (it’s interesting that at that time there was nothing similar in Google Play for any car brand in the future develop the idea).

That's all, things are left for small and we plunged into work with the head. Without any knowledge in the management / conduct / development of projects, but with a wild desire, a flame in his eyes and faith in the mountains of money.
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To understand how bad everything was:

• use of Eclipse IDE (only at the very end we moved to Android Studio );
• the absence of any TK or even User Story ;
• there was no talk of using any version control systems (only the exchange of files in VC and mail - only hardcore);
• and even more so we didn’t use any soft ’but for project management (and by that time we hadn’t heard about agile at all).

To say that the work was in full swing - to say nothing. We devoted all our free time to the project: before couples, after couples, sometimes even instead of couples. The result was not long in coming, and after a very short time, a working prototype appeared.


After the frame was made, it was necessary to add at least some interesting things:

• Appeared intelligible menu;
• broke all game logic into levels;
• added hints of 2 types;
• added a system of points that could be spent on tips;
• sharing of achievements in the most popular soc. networks;
• and much more.

Also, it was necessary to tighten and the visual component of our application (adjusting to all the main screen resolutions never forget).

There were a lot of problems along the way, but we coped with all the difficulties together. After 4 months, the application was ready.


And then came the day of truth, when you could finally buy the cherished developer license and publish the application. Everything went smoothly and did not foreshadow trouble: the application was flooded in the store and even passed moderation.

I will never forget the feeling that I experienced for the first time - incredible joy from a full-fledged / finished product that you have been doing for so long (relative to any laboratory) and that this can be shared with the whole world.

The joy did not last long - exactly half a day, just until we were banned, which said dryly that we had violated some copyright. And it was here that we began to wake up little by little from all the dreams that we crammed to ourselves during the development.

For all our questions like: “What exactly did we break?” We didn’t get a clear answer from Google support (I think many of you have come across), in addition to everything, we took the developers license, after several attempts to fix the application and re-distribute it .

Only then it became clear to us that the reasons for our ban were above the roof:

• the use of other people's photo / audio materials;
• use of a patented trademark, which does not belong to us at all.

I think if you dig, you can still dig to a pile of something.

Urgently we began to solve the problem:

• changed the name of the application;
• if possible, saw the name of the famous brand;
• replaced the pictures so that they were minimally visible or not at all visible to all recognizable logo;
• indicated that all the photos we used in the application were taken from public sources;
• etc.

But nothing, none of this helped us get into the store . In complete despair, we consulted with familiar lawyers and even wrote to the Ferrari company (Fiat group) , telling in detail about how much we love their brand and maybe they can help us with something. But we did not even answer. How naive we were, now I remember this with a smile, but then we were on the verge of depression.

How did it all end?

Unfortunately, we did not get on Google Play . To our very small Yandex.Store joy (or whatever it’s correctly called), turned out to be less picky and we calmly put our application there, safely forgetting about it almost forever (if anyone is interested, we will try to restore access to Yandex .Store and make the application free or post the project on GitHub ).

I can not say that all this was wasted. Many cones were filled and many useful conclusions were made. Of the small buns: each of us received more than one machine gun / credit, reflecting in the technology reports that were used to create the application + we even took part in some kind of competition with this application ( Android Challenge seemed to be the name).

Why am I writing all this? Just wanted to speak. Probably due to the fact that I am a little sad that the world did not see what we wanted to share with it. Yes, and this is a kind of caution that every novice developer may encounter so that you do not commit the mistakes that we made in due time.

I do not in any way urge you to abandon all your crazy ideas, on the contrary - create, try, get experience, but still do not forget about cold engineering calculation and do not give up on ahead of time.

Now, the first thing we start with is “Is it possible for us to do this from a legal point of view?”

What about us? We are not so bad. Now we are both in St. Petersburg. Everyone is busy developing unique products of its kind, albeit in completely disconnected areas - we are trying in our own way to make the world a bit better. Everyone has enough for bread and butter, and even a little more. Our friendship has only become stronger. We are freelancing together, participating in various hackathons, visiting meetup 's, conducting pet- projects and just having a good time together.