This is how Stadia lost one of its most anticipated indie games

This is how Stadia lost one of its most anticipated indie games

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Here’s how it came out in public: Terraria co-creator and Andrew Spinks, CEO of Re-Logic, published A Twitter thread Early Monday morning, he accused Google of unjustifiably suspending the studio’s YouTube, Gmail, Drive and Play accounts. He said he had not been shut down for more than 15 years of resources for nearly a month, although he had never violated Google’s rules, and the company refused to clarify the situation.

So, Spinks has the Google Stages version of Terraria, a beloved 2011 indie game with an audience of over 30 million players. Re-Logic has not even announced the Stadia version of Terraria yet, although rumors have recently hit the message boards and fans have gotten excited about a new way of playing.

Spinks tweeted: ‘I did absolutely nothing to violate your terms of service, so I can do no other than decide to burn this bridge. Consider it burnt. # Terraria for @GoogleStadia be canceled. My company no longer supports any of your platforms to move forward. ”

Here’s how it came down behind the scenes, as described by a Re-Logic spokesperson to Engadget: In mid-January, the parent account of Re-Logic’s Google services, Demilogic, received a notification from YouTube that it violates the site’s policies.

“It was quite confusing for us,” the spokesman said. Developers have not uploaded anything to the Re-Logic YouTube channel for three months, and no one in their community has warned them about new or offensive content on the account.

Google did not immediately suspend the Re-Logic YouTube channel. Rather, the initial email reads: ‘We know that you may not have realized that this is a violation of our policies, and therefore we do not apply a strike on your channel. We have removed the content. It did not suggest any further action from the studio.

Three days later, the entire Demilogic Google Account was deactivated. It shut down the Re-Logic YouTube channel, as well as the studio’s access to Gmail, Google Play, and Drive. Over the next few weeks, Spinks tried to resolve the issue directly and privately with Google, but repeatedly hit the wall.

Terraria

Herlogica

“Due to the early days of the company, when Mr Spinks was the sole employee of the company, quite a few legacy connections to the Demilogic account were severed,” the spokesman said. ‘This includes the Re-Logic YouTube account, many important documents stored on Drive, and much more. The impact is significant in nature and has been repeatedly made clear to Google. ”

YouTube has confirmed to the studio that the channel is clean. It remains unclear what the initial violation was or whether the Demilogic account will ever be reactivated.

That brings us back to Spinks’ Twitter thread.

‘My phone lost access to thousands of dollars in apps @Google Play, ”The Spinks tweeted. ‘I just bought LOTR 4K and can not complete it. Me @Google Drive data is completely gone. I do not have access to my @ Youtube channel. Worst of all is losing access to my internet @gmail address of more than 15 years. ”

Google did not respond to a request for comment from Engadget.

Herlogica

Herlogica

Re-Logic’s spokesman said Spinks’ tweet storm was a calculated step out of a studio out of options.

“This is not a position we like or take lightly,” they said. “Google has been a long-time partner, but the inability to resolve it for us, a valued partner, within a period of almost a month is not acceptable.”

Baked in its terms of service, Google has a wide power to terminate accounts for anything it considers ‘abusive’, and it has used this power freely for many years. The company has a history of banning accounts and moving on, leaving users with little information and no use for disputing violations. Re-Logic is just the latest example of this behavior.

“We are aware of many other incidents in a similar vein with a recurring pattern of ‘ban out of the blue’, with no information on the reason and no use,” the studio spokesman said. ‘This has happened to countless individuals as well as developers for Android and beyond. We hope our situation is a warning to others as well as a vehicle to shine a bright spotlight on this issue as a whole. As a result, there may be a significant change in the customer service front within Google. It is much needed. ”

Terraria hit Android devices via the Play Store in 2013, and it will stay there, despite the studio’s rocky relationship with Google at the moment. The studio spokesman made it clear that Re-Logic will not be working with Google on future projects, Terraria-related or otherwise.

“I will not be involved in a business that values ​​their customers and partners so little,” Spinks said at the end of his Twitter thread. “Doing business with you is an obligation.”

Stages in turn are in the midst of a restructuring. Google closed Stadia’s in-house studios in early February and one of its star rental companies, former Assassin’s Creed producer Jade Raymond, left the company. After years of hollow promises and a growing list of dedicated competitors in the cloud game, Stadia looks on the verge of collapse. It always feels that way again.

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