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Why is Google allowed to remove purchases from our Play Store accounts without telling us? (www.androidpolice.com)

submitted 9 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 40 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Honestly, as somebody who really loved the early era of Android gaming, I'm really disappointed how ephemeral it all was between the Play Store delistings and the absolutely atrocious approach to backwards compatibility in the Android OS.

[–] aluminium@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yep I found out myself pretty quickly. With a simple App which was maybe 10K lines of code I started targeting Android 10 and so far every new major version caused some issue with the code as Google constantly messes around with files, permissions, ...

I can't imagine what a task it is to maintain a game.

[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I just wish Google would release some kind of 32-bit Android 4.4 sandboxed compatibility layer for old games. Android 4.4 was the standard Android version for a super long time for a zillion devices, and I'd bet 99% of the dead .APK games out there would run on that version.

Give me a tool with a crapload of slow, clumsy emulation wrappers covered in tedious config options and a launcher any time I want to run an app through this compatibility layer and let me play Amazing Alex again.

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

and let me play Amazing Alex again.

Why not just buy a top notch 4.4 phone off eBay? Looks like you can get a Galaxy Note 4 for about 40$

[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago

Ahh, you know, it's about the convenience of not having to juggle another device. I still have an old Galaxy Tab kicking around the house that plays all that stuff pretty well, but it's not the same as being able to pull it out of my pocket on the bus.

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 points 9 months ago

There exists stuff like this.

Virtualxposed. Sandvxposed.

The most popular one I heard about vmos, https://www.vmos.com/

But that one was android 8 (I think?) closed source, and probably spyware inside and outside the thing.

Also, new changes by google may break these emulator type apps:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SamsungDex/comments/16r1tg8/phantom_process_killer_solution_in_android_14/

[–] atocci@kbin.social 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Seriously, I can't run a 32 bit game on a 64 bit processor? How is that even a problem on newer phones?

[–] rickrolled767@ttrpg.network 11 points 9 months ago

They probably removed certain libraries that are used by 32 bit programs

[–] Amir@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 months ago

They removed the 32-bit libraries from the system so they don't have to be loaded, to save RAM.

[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Yep, I never bought a game again after my CAVE shmups all stopped working when I switched phones, there's also no way to try and make it work on your phone unlike any other operating system on PC since it's so locked down, completely dependent on devs to care.