Kongregate CEO Jim Greer says he is shocked by Google’s controversial removal of an Arcade app from the Android Market.
As TG Daily previously reported, the Mountain View-based company issued an official statement claiming Kongregate was in “violation” of the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement which prohibits apps from allowing the downloading of other programs.
However, Greer contends that calling Kongregate Arcade an actual app store seems like a “pretty extreme” stretch.
“Every other removal that Google’s done previously has been, you know, fraudulent banking apps and other stuff that was just clearly over the line,” Greer told Joystiq.
“We were just shocked. I’m not ready to say it’s a philosophical shift from Google; you could misinterpret our app and think those are all native experiences, but right now I’m just confused.”
According to Greer, Google “misinterpreted” the app, as the people making Market decisions “weren’t necessarily” engineers.
“It’s all essentially cached content delivered in a browser, which to me is just bizarre that that would be considered an ‘app store. It’s just browser-based content.
“[Anyway], our understanding is that this wasn’t even a gray area; that it was totally fine. And that’s why we’re so surprised.”
In a separate interview with TechLand, Greer noted that Kongregate had even shown the app to several people at Google.
“They said, ‘Wow. This is great. This is something that iOS devices really can’t do, and it’s much better than playing in a regular browser.’
“But Google is a large company, and they weren’t necessarily the decision makers who had all the information about the guidelines for the Google market. Those guidelines certainly are evolving as well. So we understand that.”
Finally, Greer acknowledged that Android, along with its extensive ecosystem, was evolving “extremely” quickly.
“[Still], we’re hopeful that the vast majority of signs that Google has sent has shown that they are looking for partners to specialize in what they’re good at – be it games, or music, or movies, or news.
“And, [of course], provide great experiences that are sort of a blend of apps in the mobile Web. And I think the exact parameters around all those things are something that naturally are going to be in flux. Hopefully, Google will continue to have a dialogue with the developers about that,” he added.
