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A recent injunction issued by a district court suspended enforcement of Texas state law SB2420, which introduced age assurance requirements for app marketplaces and developers. In light of this ruling, Apple will pause previously announced implementation plans and monitor the ongoing legal process. The tools we previously announced to help developers meet their compliance obligations will remain available for sandbox testing, including: Declared Age Range API Significant Change API under PermissionKit New age rating property type in StoreKit App Store Server Notifications These tools can also be used to help developers with their obligations under laws coming into effect in Utah and Louisiana in 2026. The Declared Age Range API remains available worldwide for users on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26, or later.
The Most Honest Awards in Gaming Industry
Posted by Sam Bright – VP & GM, Google Play + Developer Ecosystem Hi everyone, Thank you for making 2025 another amazing year for Google Play. Together, we’ve built Play into something much more than a store—it’s a dynamic ecosystem powered by your creativity. This year, our focus was ensuring Play continues to be the best destination for people to discover incredible content and enjoy rewarding gaming experiences . We're incredibly proud of the progress we've made alongside you, and we’re excited to celebrate those who pushed the boundaries of what’s possible—like the winners of our Best of 2025 awards . Watch our recap video to see how we’ve made Play even more rewarding for your business, or read on for a more in-depth look back on the year. Evolving Play to be more than a store This year, we focused on evolving Play into a true destination for discovery where billions of people around the world can find and enjoy experiences that make life more productive and delightful. Making Play the best destination for your games business Just a few months ago, we shared our vision for a more unified experience that brings more fun to gaming . Today, players often jump between different platforms to discover, play, and get rewarded. Our goal is to connect these journeys to create the best experience for players and, consequently, grow your business. Our first steps include these key updates: A new Gamer Profile that tracks cross-game stats, streaks, and achievements, customizable with a Gen AI Avatar. Integrated Rewards across mobile and PC that give players access to VIP experiences like our Four Days of Fantastic Rewards at San Diego Comic-Con , Diamond District experience on Roblox , and Play’s own treasure-hunt mini-game Diamond Valley alongside new Play Games Leagues where players can compete in their favorite games, climb leaderboards, and win Play Points rewards. The new Play Games Sidekick , a helpful in-game overlay that curates and organizes relevant gaming info, and provides direct access to Gemini Live for real-time AI-powered guidance in the game. We recently rolled out the open beta to developers, and we encourage you to start testing the sidekick in your games and share your feedback. Integrated gameplay across devices is now fully realized as Google Play Games on PC has graduated from beta to general availability, solidifying our commitment to cross-platform play and making our catalog of over 200,000 titles available across mobile and PC. Play Games Sidekick is a new in-game overlay that gives players instant access to their rewards, offers, and achievements, driving higher engagement for your game. To help you get the most out of this unified gaming experience, we introduced the Google Play Games Level Up program, a new way to unlock greater success for your business. For titles that meet core user experience guidelines, you can unlock a powerful suite of benefits including the ability to: Re-engage players on the new You tab, a new personalized destination on the Play Store that is designed to help you re-engage and retain players by showcasing content and rewards from recently played games in one dedicated space. You can utilize engagement tools in Play Console to feature your latest events, offers, and updates. Maximize your game’s reach with prominent boosts across the store, including featuring opportunities, Play Points boosters and quests, and enhanced visibility on editorial surfaces like the Games Home and Play Points Home. You tab is a personalized destination designed to help you re-engage and retain players by showcasing your latest events, offers, and updates. Unlocking more discovery and engagement for your apps and its content Last year, we shared our vision for a content-rich Google Play that has already delivered strong results. Year-over-year, Apps Home has seen over an 18% increase in average monthly visitors with apps seeing a 9% growth in acquisitions and double-digit growth* in app spend for those monetizing on Google Play. We introduced even more updates to elevate discovery and engagement on and off the store. Curated spaces , launched last year, have been a success, fostering routine engagement by delivering daily, locally relevant content (such as football highlights in Brazil, cricket in India, and comics in Japan) directly to the Apps Home. Building on this, we expanded to new categories and locations, including a new entertainment-focused space in Korea . Curated spaces make it easier to find and engage with local interests. We significantly increased timely, relevant content on Google Play through Spotlight and new topic browse pages . Spotlight, located at the top of Apps Home, offers seasonal content feeds—like Taylor Swift’s recent album launch or holiday movie guides—in a new, immersive way to connect users with current cultural moments. Concurrently, new topic browse pages were integrated across the store in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, allowing content deep dives into over 100,000 shows and movies. Spotlight offers an immersive experience connecting users with relevant apps during current cultural moments. Last year, we introduced Engage SDK to help you deliver personalized content to users across surfaces and seamlessly guide them into the relevant in-app experiences. Integrating it unlocks surfaces like Collections , our immersive full-screen experience bringing content directly to the user's home screen. This year, we rolled out updates to expand your content’s reach even further: Engage SDK content expanded to the Play Store this summer, enabling seamless re-engagement across Apps Home and the new You tab. Rolled out to more markets, including Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, and Korea . Supporting you throughout your app lifecycle In addition to evolving the store, we’ve continued to build on our powerful toolset to support you at every stage, from testing and release to growth and monetization. Helping you deliver high-quality, trusted user experiences We launched key updates in Android Studio and Play Console to help you build more stable and compliant apps. Policy insights in Android Studio help you catch potential violations early by showing in-context guidance, such as policy summaries and best practices, whenever code related to a Google Play policy is detected. You can now halt fully rolled-out releases to stop the distribution of problematic app versions through Play Console and the Publishing API. We also added new Android vitals performance metrics , including low memory kill metrics which provides device-specific insights to resolve stability problems and excessive partial wake lock metrics to help you address battery drain. New Android vitals metrics h elp you resolve stability problems and address battery drain. Boosting your productivity and workflow We refined the Play Console experience to make managing your app and your marketing content more efficient. We put your most essential insights front and center with a redesigned app dashboard and overview pages . To repurpose creative content across Play Console more easily, we launched an asset library that lets you upload from Google Drive, organize with tags, and crop existing visuals. You can now automatically translate app strings with Gemini at no cost. This feature eliminates manual translation work for new releases, making updates seamless. You remain in full control with the ability to preview translations using a built-in emulator, and can easily edit or disable the service. Translate app strings automatically with Gemini, while maintaining full control for previewing and editing. Maximizing your revenue with secure, frictionless payments We introduced new features focused on driving purchases and maximizing subscription revenue globally. We’re improving purchase conversion globally with over 800 million users now ready to buy . We launched features that encourage users to set up payment methods early, provide AI-powered payment method recommendations, and expanded our payment library to support more local payment methods globally. To maximize recurring revenue from over 400 million paid subscriptions, we introduced multi-product checkout , allowing you to sell base subscriptions and add-ons under a simple, single transaction. To combat churn, we began showcasing subscription benefits in more places and provided you with more flexible options like extended grace periods and account holds for declined payments, which has proven effective in reducing involuntary churn by an average of 10%* . To help reduce voluntary churn, we’re showcasing your subscriptions benefits across Play. Investing in our app and game community with developer programs We’re proud to invest in programs for app and game companies around the world to help you grow and succeed on Play. Google Play Apps Accelerator : We’ve opened submissions for our program that will help early-stage app companies scale their business. Selected companies from over 80 eligible countries will join a 12-week accelerator starting in March 2026, where they can learn more about creating high-quality apps, go-to-market strategies, user acquisition, and more. Submissions are still open for our 12-week accelerator, which starts in March 2026. Apply by January 7, 2026 for consideration. Indie Games Fund (Latin America): Now in its fourth year, this fund provides support to 10 promising game studios in Latin America with funding and hands-on support from Google Play. In October, we announced the 2025 recipients. ChangGoo Program (South Korea): Now in its seventh year, this program works with over 100 Korean mobile app and game startups to foster their growth and expansion in collaboration with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korean Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED). Google Play x Unity Game Developer Training Program (Indonesia): The third edition launched in April, offering a 6-month online curriculum, meetups, and mentorship for Indonesian game developers in partnership with Indonesia’s Ministry of Creative Economy and the Indonesian Gaming Association. Google Play x Unity Game Developer Training Program (India): The first India cohort kicked off in November with 500 aspiring and professional game developers. The 6-month journey provides online curriculum and meetups in partnership with GDAI and the govt of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Google for Startups Accelerator program (India): We provided Seed to Series-A AI-powered app startups in India with insights on the latest AI advancements, mentorship, and expert guidance. Protecting your business and our ecosystem At the heart of all the progress we’ve made this year is a foundation of trust and security. We're always innovating to make Play safer for everyone—so users can trust every app they download and so you can keep building a thriving business. To offer stronger protection for your business and users, we continued to enhance the Play Integrity API and our anti-fraud systems. On average, apps using Play Integrity features see 80% lower unauthorized usage, and our efforts have safeguarded top apps using Play Billing from $2.9 billion in fraud and abuse in the last year. Automatically fix user issues: New Play in-app remediation prompts in Play Integrity API automatically guide users to fix common problems like network issues, outdated Google Play Services, or device integrity flags, reducing integration complexity and getting users back to a good state faster. Combat repeat bad actors: Device recall is a powerful new tool that lets you store and recall limited data associated with a device, even if the device is reset, helping protect your business model from repeat bad actors. Strengthen revenue protection: We've introduced stronger protections against abuse, including refining pricing arbitrage detection and enhancing protection against free trial and intro pricing abuse for subscriptions, helping your business models remain profitable. With in-app remediation prompts, Play automatically handles a wide range of issues to guide your users back to a good state. For a full breakdown of new ways we’re keeping the ecosystem safe, check out our deep-dive blog post here . Thank you for your partnership This is an incredible time for Google Play. We’ve made huge strides together – your passion, creativity, and feedback throughout 2025 has made Play that much stronger. We’re grateful to work alongside the best developer community in the world, and we look forward to unlocking even greater success together in the new year. Happy holidays! Sam Bright VP & GM, Google Play + Developer Ecosystem * Source: Internal Google data
AppCharge went from zero to $500M+ in gaming transactions, but the real story is three years of grinding, failed funding rounds, and two best friends learning to disagree without breaking
Beginning December 10, 2025, a new Australian law will require certain social media platforms operating in Australia to prevent people under 16 from having a social media account. Impacted developers are responsible for making sure they follow the requirements of the new law, including deactivating any existing accounts for users under 16 and monitoring new signups. Apple provides several tools to help meet the requirements of this law: Declared Age Range API The new Declared Age Range API helps developers provide age-appropriate experiences for their users. Developers can choose to request the age range that is most relevant to their use case, such as an age range of under 16, and modify app behavior based on this information. App description on the App Store When making an app available on the App Store, developers must include a description that helps users determine whether the app is appropriate for them. Developers can use this app description field to indicate information that may not be captured in other areas of the product page, such as social media age restrictions for people under a certain age. In-app controls on the App Store product page This year, Apple updated the age ratings questionnaire that is required for all apps. The update included adding new questions about in-app controls, such as the presence of age assurance and parental controls. Apps using age assurance methods — such as the Declared Age Range API — to comply with the law and prevent users under 16 from creating accounts can indicate the presence of this capability on their App Store product page. Higher minimum age rating With our recent update to age ratings, developers can set a higher age rating than the one generated by their responses to the age ratings questionnaire in App Store Connect. Developers can view the age rating for each of their apps and select a higher rating if they wish, in the App Information section in App Store Connect . Age Suitability URL When updating an app's age rating, developers have the option to include an Age Suitability URL that links to a developer-hosted website with details about the app and its age-related content. When enabled, this URL appears on the App Store product page under the age ratings details section. Developers can use this URL to provide region-specific information and requirements, such as the prohibition in Australia of people under 16 having a social media account. Learn more about the Declared Age Range API Learn more about updating your app’s age rating Learn more about an app’s product page
So was it all product or was marketing behind the resurrection?
Join us in celebrating the outstanding work of these developers from around the world. Meet the winners
Three backend engineers were told they were unfundable and building in a graveyard market. Ten years later, Heroic Labs is profitable, powers major game studios, and never raised VC money. Here's how they did it.
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Posted by Dom Elliott – Principal Product Manager, Google Play and Eric Lynch - Senior Product Manager, Android Security In the mobile ecosystem, abuse can threaten your revenue, growth, and user trust. To help developers thrive, Google Play offers a resilient threat detection service, Play Integrity API . Play Integrity API helps you verify that interactions and server requests are genuine—coming from your unmodified app on a certified Android device, installed by Google Play. The impact is significant: apps using Play integrity features see 80% lower unauthorized usage on average compared to other apps. Today, leaders across diverse categories—including Uber, TikTok, Stripe, Kabam, Wooga, Radar.com, Zimperium, Paytm, and Remini—use it to help safeguard their businesses. We’re continuing to improve the Play Integrity API, making it easier to integrate, more resilient against sophisticated attacks, and better at recovering users who don’t meet integrity standards or encounter errors with new Play in-app remediation prompts. Detect threats to your business The Play Integrity API offers verdicts designed to detect specific threats that impact your bottom line during critical interactions. Unauthorized access : The accountDetails verdict helps you determine whether the user installed or paid for your app or game on Google Play. Code tampering : The appIntegrity verdict helps you determine whether you're interacting with your unmodified binary that Google Play recognizes. Risky devices and emulated environments : The deviceIntegrity verdict helps you determine whether your app is running on a genuine Play Protect certified Android device or a genuine instance of Google Play Games for PC. Unpatched devices : For devices running Android 13 and higher, MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY response in the deviceIntegrity verdict helps you determine if a device has applied recent security updates. You can also opt in to deviceAttributes to include the attested Android SDK version in the response. Risky access by other apps: The appAccessRiskVerdict helps you determine whether apps are running that could be used to capture the screen, display overlays, or control the device (for example, by misusing the accessibility permission). This verdict automatically excludes apps that serve genuine accessibility purposes. Known malware: The playProtectVerdict helps you determine whether Google Play Protect is turned on and whether it has found risky or dangerous apps installed on the device. Hyperactivity: The recentDeviceActivity level helps you determine whether a device has made an anomalously high volume of integrity token requests recently, which could indicate automated traffic and could be a sign of attack. Repeat abuse and reused devices: deviceRecall (beta) helps you determine whether you're interacting with a device that you've previously flagged, even if your app was reinstalled or the device was reset. With device recall, you can customize the repeat actions you want to track. The API can be used across Android form factors including phones, tablets, foldables, Android Auto, Android TV, Android XR, ChromeOS, Wear OS, and on Google Play Games for PC. Make the most of Play Integrity API Apps and games have found success with the Play Integrity API by following the security considerations and taking a phased approach to their anti-abuse strategy. Step 1: Decide what you want to protect : Decide what actions and server requests in your apps and games are important to verify and protect. For example, you could perform integrity checks when a user is launching the app, signing in, joining a multiplayer game, generating AI content, or transferring money. Step 2: Collect integrity verdict responses : Perform integrity checks at important moments to start collecting verdict data, without enforcement initially. That way you can analyze the responses for your install base and see how they correlate with your existing abuse signals and historical abuse data. Step 3: Decide on your enforcement strategy : Decide on your enforcement strategy based on your analysis of the responses and what you are trying to protect. For example, you could change risky traffic at important moments to protect sensitive functionality. The API offers a range of responses so you can implement a tiered enforcement strategy based on the trust level you give to each combination of responses. Step 4: Gradually rollout enforcement and support your users: Gradually roll out enforcement. Have a retry strategy when verdicts have issues or are unavailable and be prepared to support good users who have issues. The new Play in-app remediation prompts, described below, make it easier than ever to get users with issues back to a good state. NEW: Let Play recover users with issues automatically Deciding how to respond to different integrity signals can be complex, you need to handle various integrity responses and API error codes (like network issues or outdated Play services). We’re simplifying this with new Play in-app remediation prompts . You can show a Google Play prompt to your users to automatically fix a wide range of issues directly within your app. This reduces integration complexity, ensures a consistent user interface, and helps get more users back to a good state. GET_INTEGRITY automatically detects the issue (in this example, a network error) and resolves it. You can trigger the GET_INTEGRITY dialog, available in Play Integrity API library version 1.5.0+, after a range of issues to automatically guide the user through the necessary fixes including: Unauthorized access: GET_INTEGRITY guides the user back to a Play licensed response in accountDetails . Code tampering: GET_INTEGRITY guides the user back to a Play recognized response in appIntegrity . Device integrity issues: GET_INTEGRITY guides the user on how to get back to the MEETS_DEVICE_INTEGRITY state in deviceIntegrity . Remediable error codes: GET_INTEGRITY resolves remediable API errors, such as prompting the user to fix network connectivity or update Google Play Services. We also offer specialized dialogs including GET_STRONG_INTEGRITY (which works like GET_INTEGRITY while also getting the user back to the MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY state with no known malware issues in the playProtectVerdict ), GET_LICENSED (which gets the user back to a Play licensed and Play recognized state), and CLOSE_UNKNOWN_ACCESS_RISK and CLOSE_ALL_ACCESS_RISK (which prompt the user to close potentially risky apps). Choose modern integrity solutions In addition to Play Integrity API, Google offers several other features to consider as part of your overall anti-abuse strategy . Both Play Integrity API and Play’s automatic protection offer user experience and developer benefits for safeguarding app distribution. We encourage existing apps to migrate to these modern integrity solutions instead of using the legacy Play licensing library . Automatic protection: Prevent unauthorized access with Google Play’s automatic protection and ensure users continue getting your official app updates. Turn it on and Google Play will automatically add an installer check to your app’s code, with no developer integration work required. If your protected app is redistributed or shared through another channel, then the user will be prompted to get your app from Google Play. Eligible Play developers also have access to Play’s advanced anti-tamper protection, which uses obfuscation and runtime checks to make it harder and costlier for attackers to modify and redistribute protected apps. Android platform key attestation: Play Integrity API is the recommended way to benefit from hardware-backed Android platform key attestation . Play Integrity API takes care of the underlying implementation across the device ecosystem, Play automatically mitigates key-related issues and outages, and you can use the API to detect other threats. Developers who directly implement key attestation instead of relying on Play Integrity API should prepare for the upcoming Android Platform root certificate rotation in February 2026 to avoid disruption (developers using Play Integrity API do not need to take any action). Firebase App Check : Developers using Firebase can use Firebase App Check to receive an app and device integrity verdict powered by Play Integrity API on certified Android devices, along with responses from other platform attestation providers. To detect all other threats and use other Play features, integrate Play Integrity API directly. reCAPTCHA Enterprise : Enterprise customers looking for a complete fraud and bot management solution can purchase reCAPTCHA Enterprise for mobile. reCAPTCHA Enterprise uses some of Play Integrity API’s anti-abuse signals, and combines them with reCAPTCHA signals out of the box. Safeguard your business today With a strong foundation in hardware-backed security and new automated remediation dialogs simplifying integration, the Play Integrity API is an essential tool for protecting your growth. Get started with the Play Integrity API documentation .
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