Marblesared on Google Play (finally)

Well it took a while but finally it is there for actual sale in the Google Play store, with a free demo, and a separate closed beta release for all you beta testers out there.

 

It took this long partly due to multi-factored complications with bundle package naming restrictions.
 - The original beta was called com.pcandvr.marblesared.
 - My automated bundle naming code needed to distinguish alpha/beta/production bundles when publishing, so I couldn't leave that name as is for beta, & couldn't customise the naming just for production due to other G.P. restrictions.
 - Google Play does not allow changing a 'free' app to a 'paid' app, so I couldn't make com.pcandvr.marblesared the prod paid bundle
 - Google Play lets you 'unpublish' an app bundle so that it no longer appears in Google Play to users as something they can download, but it does not let you delete the app bundle.  Ever.  Users who do not uninstall the app are free to continue to use that app on their devices.
- Google Play does not let you re-use old app bundle names for new apps, even after you unpublish the old app.  That is understandable - users should never face the issue of an update to an old app resulting in a different new app on their device.


So, ultimately, I ended up with three new app bundle names to meet a repeatable naming scheme:
com.pcandvr.marblesared_beta       (free)
com.pcandvr.marblesared_demo     (free)
com.pcandvr.marblesared_prod      (paid)

Some annoying news for beta testers - you'll need to uninstall your current Marblesared app, and reinstall the new beta here:
 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pcandvr.marblesared_beta&hl=en



I looked briefly again at Apple iTunes/App Store & Microsoft UWP
However:
Both Apple & Microsoft Developer programs require payment of 100USD (150AUD) every year.
Steam was a 100USD fee per title, but it was a once-off cost per title.

With current lack of sales of Marblesared, across itch.io, Steam, & Patreon,
coupled with the recent news of Microsoft dropping Windows Phone as a delivery platform,
balanced against significant losses already for Steam & PCAndVR business set-up,
those are additional costs I simply can't justify just at the moment - I will reconsider when I have more titles to publish, or a separate income stream to sustain that additional cost factor.