It seems an odd thing to think that Google would pull one of the few gaming advantages it has over iOS and Windows Phone 7, but Google did exactly that. Apparently in violation of its “No Apps can download other Apps” rule, Kongregate’s 300-game-strong service was yanked.
Kongregate, however, argues that its Arcade App is not a self-contained App store, and has expressed surprise over the “bizarre” removal.
“The reason for the removal,” says CEO Jim Greer, “and we didn’t find out until after it was already gone, was that they claim you can’t use their App store to distribute another App store — which is a reasonable restriction. But to us, what’s really bizarre, to call [Kongregate Arcade] an ‘App store’ seems like a pretty extreme stretch.
Greer says that when you “download” a game via Kongregate, you’re merely caching content, which is then played in a browser: “So, 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.”
The whole situation seems silly to me. Kongregate seems to believe its App works within Google’s guidelines, and its hasty removal indicates that Google kneejerked rather than saw a real violation. Google needs to reevaulate this and restore the App, because it is not what Google says it is.
Kongregate CEO Jim Greer on getting pulled from the Android Market [Joystiq]
