Kongregate Arcade's rejection from the Android Market just got more interesting now that Google has explained itself.
It also allowed users to cache Flash games for offline play. And that, apparently, is what upset Google enough to remove the app. (You can still get it from Kongregate's website.) The Android Market does not allow developers to distribute their own app stores, and offline caching led Google to view Kongregate Arcade as a self-contained app storefront.
But in explaining its logic to GigaOM, Google has exposed both a double standard for video games and an instance where Apple, oddly enough, is more liberal.
Before this incident, I never noticed that the Android Market doesn't have any legitimate emulation apps. Sure, there are scads of emulators like Nesoid and Frodo C64, but you've got to supply your own ROMs to play games. On the iPhone, there's Manomio's C64, VH1 Classic's Intellivision, Elite's ZX Spectrum collection and the just-relaunched iDOS. All of them have in-app stores for legally downloading games. I don't know whether Google has explicitly banned these kinds of apps, or whether the developers simply aren't interested, but it's kind of odd that the apps Google allows are the ones most likely to infringe copyrights.
Kongregate's only shot at the Android Market may be to release the app without offline play, but I really hope that doesn't happen. Google ought to be celebrating this app, which not only lifts up Android as a gaming platform but does so with Flash, supposedly a big advantage for Android over the iPhone. The developers' terms in play here are convoluted enough for Google to make an exception.
This story, "Why Google Booted Kongregate from Android Market" was originally published by Technologizer.