The Case of the Soap Bubble Pipe

Google accepted our mobile game submission several times, until right before launch when they suddenly didn't. The ordeal was painful to fix. We'd love if something good came out of this, so below are our takeaways and story. We hope others can avoid the trouble we had!

What We Learned

• Google suspends apps after multiple rejections (maybe 2-4, from what I've seen on Reddit). Getting unsuspended is very difficult, even when you have strong grounds for an appeal.

• Don't resubmit if you're unsure what they want. Instead, reach out to the Google Play Developer Help Community! The forum has real people who respond pretty quickly (often within 24 hours).

• See also, How to Make a Good Appeal.

• Allow plenty of time for approval before a planned launch date...you just never know what's going to happen.

The Whole Story

In late September, we were preparing to launch our first game, Catagrams! Beta versions had been approved several times on Google Play and Apple's App Store. We submitted our final version and tentatively started plans for a launch party at a local cat cafe. ❤️🐈

Then, to our surprise, Google rejected the submission for its content rating. Our Sherlock Holmes styled cat had a soap-bubble pipe, which they said was a tobacco reference. The rejection letter included a screenshot of the pipe and the "E/Everyone" rating, and instructed us to re-take the content rating questionnaire.

We hadn't considered the "Drugs" section of the questionnaire before, since the pipe was blowing bubbles – not smoke – and the game is very innocuous.

So we followed instructions and retook the questionnaire, this time including "Tobacco References". The resulting rating – calculated by Google – did not change. It was still "E/Everyone". But we had done as they asked, so we resubmitted.

Then things escalated, leaving us bewildered:

1. The submission was rejected again, for the same reason.

2. We appealed, and our appeal was denied with an identical form letter.

3. At a loss, we submitted the questionnaire again, in case we'd made a mistake before.

4. The submission was rejected and the app was suspended for too many rejections.

5. We appealed the suspension and mentioned that we'd be happy to simply remove the pipe, but the appeal was denied.

The app suspension prevents us from making further changes and bars the app from the store. It's also a "strike" against our developer account, which increases risk of our developer account being suspended, which would bar Ponderosa Games from the Play Store. It's a pretty scary situation. We've invested two years creating our game, company, and brand.

At this point, several weeks had passed due to the slow process of email correspondence across various departments. We reached out to anyone we knew who might have a contact at Google Play, as well as on the forum at the Google Play Developer Help Community. There, a "product expert" was eventually able to get our appeal escalated and someone new reviewed it and accepted it, contingent on removing the pipe.

We're glad things seem back on track. It's been incredibly frustrating, though. We repeatedly received canned responses from reviewers who apparently didn't read what we wrote. The chat help feature was continuously unavailable, and the phone help button was/is broken with an error message.

Additionally, this whole ordeal put us in a bind with our launch date. After the delays, we were so close to the U.S. election and holiday season that it wasn't a good time to release the game. So, we're postponing until at least January.

Good luck out there, and we hope you never need this advice!