Looks pretty sketchy indeed.

The post says 15 developers, their website 65+. The reviews are written in the same broken English as their website.

Their flagship game, “Tonk”, is nowhere to be found in the Apple App Store, but there are two other games with a very similar logo, published by other India-based companies. The same on Play store, where a bunch of identical looking games, with different publisher names, share similar logos [1].

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tonk.board.car...

If that’s the case it really seems like some scammers got their just deserts. Ironically, an example of Google’s policies working well.

But what would scammers gain for complaining about Google? It isn't like they can pressure Google to reinstate their account in that case, worst case for Google they would have to make a public statement saying these people are scammers. I mean, yeah as long as Google doesn't answer they can get some minimal public support, but what would they gain from that?

>But what would scammers gain for complaining about Google?

Well, it is probably more what do they have to lose? Plenty of internet hate mobs have formed backing a cause that later came out to be misleading, if not outright fraudulent. Even assuming they are scammers, it is quite possible they think they are in the right (there are cultures that have... different views about business ethics), but they could also just be rolling the dice.

They've gained free SEO, traffic, and publicity from this HN thread alone.

Right? Might as well try. The only other option is to go quietly into that good night.

No Michael, First of all you may find my english broken, Because it is not my first language. Thanks for reading our story

We're not scammers. Whom we're scamming google? Users? How we're scamming?

It's my fault i should have added the background info of ours in the medium post. But i've never written any post of anything so i was inexperienced,

But let me clear something about us,

We're india based gaming company. All our games are just simulations it is not real gambling. If it was real gambling then google wouldn't have allowed us to publish it on play store for 2 years.

now this will arise some more questions in your mind,

>>Why do we mentions address of UK on our tweeter handle? 1. According to google policy we have to provide a physical address if we want to use in-app-purchases. This physical address is visible publicly on our games pages.

Reason providing our uk address is we have a representative living there who can reply to any type of physical communications such as letters on behalf of us. He also can reply to various other stuffs like GDPR and different other policies. For ex. You can send a latter to the given address to get in touch with us!

>> Where can i find your games incase i want to see them? You can find it on apk pure. let me provide you links - https://m.apkpure.com/developer/6Ace%20Games

lol secure your own shady office network first before putting Android users at risk.

Hi there,

First of all, You may find my english broken but it is not my first language. We're india based startup.

Thanks reading our story. Let me answer some of your doubts. the numbers are not right on website. We've team of only 15 devs.

Our games are not on app store because it is developed for android only in java.

You may find identical games with similar logos because of copy cats. Once they know that your games are doing good they'll start copying.

Tonk is a traditional card game popular in united states , we just made it more fun bringing it in mobile phones. So other devs also can make tonk games. It is not our pattern or anything like that.

this will arise a new question in you mind:

>>Why do we mentions address of UK on our tweeter handle? 1. According to google policy we have to provide a physical address if we want to use in-app-purchases. This physical address is visible publicly on our games pages.

Reason providing our uk address is we have a representative living there who can reply to any type of physical communications such as letters on behalf of us. He also can reply to various other stuffs like GDPR and different other policies. For ex. You can send a later to the given address to get in touch with us!

>> Where can i find your games incase i want to see them? You can find it on apk pure. let me provide you links - https://m.apkpure.com/developer/6Ace%20Games

Isn’t this those copycats that they mention in their article? They talk about copying ad ids, but maybe it’s just the whole game?

The lookalike in the App Store was first published 3 years ago.

I had the same feeling reading the post. Looking at their website and social media makes me even more sceptical.

They say they are a team of developers working on this for 3 years and having millions of users.

And then they have exactly two Twitter followers?

No address or company type in their contact section? An Alexa rank of over 3 million? A website that is not in the wayback machine?

OP is being opaque and probably exaggerating, And yet I still suspect that the underlying claim is true - Google likely did kill the project by killing their dev account.

This is still a fundamental problem with having only two global centralized app stores.

Nobody is arguing whether Google killed their account.

We're saying they trip tons of shady heuristics, and we're skeptical there wasn't a solid reason. Particularly when the majority of games were free -- there's tons of very shady monetization strategies out there, particularly for games involving gambling.

Plus, for example, a twitter account that either started May 9, or was scrubbed. For a company with claimed millions of users.

Bundle ids against a domain -- sixace.com -- which they don't appear to own.

No company information that I can find on the internet or LinkedIn.

Fake testimonials on their website with stolen images from the internet.

No company information in the UK company database for either 6ace or sixace, despite a claimed address of "61,hallwicks road,Luton,Bedfordshire,London-LU2 9BG".

etc etc. All this screams sketchy.

> No company information in the UK company database for either 6ace or sixace, despite a claimed address of "61,hallwicks road,Luton,Bedfordshire,London-LU2 9BG".

To be fair it is common for a UK company to have a generic name and for various activities run under it to trade under different names.

Usually however when the company is legitimate the footer of the website will say "Brand Name is a trading name for Actual Company Name Limited" where the company name will be registered at Companies House.

Not the case here, cannot see any info on the actual company, couldn't actually find a mention of that address anywhere on the site either where did you get it from?

That's a residential address for a random house in Luton. Not uncommon for a small company to be registered to a residential property, but the address doesn't seem to be in Companies House records.

Anyway I do agree this is sending off all sorts of red flags for me too, I think the post is telling a very one sided story and Google in this specific case has legitimate reason to ban that dodgy developer account.

The address was prominently displayed on their play store pages.

eg https://ibb.co/mFTpzCC

Thanks. Since no company is registered under that address I'd bet there simply is no company and the guy is just a sole trader under the name Six Ace Games. No official registration needed for that, you just have to report the income to HMRC (taxman) and that's it.

I guess I'm skeptical one person could make that many games? Plus, again, there's claims of 15+ employees elsewhere.

I think we both agree that this whole thing is shady af.

It’s perfectly possible to have employees or subcontractors as a sole trader…

Hello there,

First of all sorry for my bad emglish. It is not my first language so.

It's my bad i should have mentioned more stuff to our medium post so that it won't leave users with any confusions. Please pardon me as this was my first post. I've never had written anything before.

You might got some questions like

Q: Who are we? A: We are simply a india based gaming startup. We had 8-10 games published on our playstore account.

Q:Why do we mentions address of UK on our tweeter handle? A:. According to google policy we have to provide a physical address if we want to use in-app-purchases. This physical address is visible publicly on our games pages.

Reason providing our uk address is we have a representative living there who can reply to any type of physical communications such as letters on behalf of us. He also can reply to various other stuffs like GDPR and different other policies. For ex. You can send a latter to the given address to get in touch with us!

Q: Where can i find your games incase i want to see them? A: You can find it on apk pure. let me provide you links - https://m.apkpure.com/developer/6Ace%20Games

Q:How me monetized our games? A: Through admob and in-app products. Nothing shady!

Q:Our games was providing gambling? A: No, It's just simulations. You can't win money or bet money, Not at all!

Q: what about your domain 6acegames.com? A: Yes, our domain 6acegames.com is new. The reason behind it is very silly you may find it funny but still let me tell you!, at first we have bought domain sixacegames.com(you can check reg. details) thinking it will help in seo and all because we didn't want to include a number "6" in our domain. But later after our games got popular user started searching for 6Acegames that's why we bought this domain as well in may 2021 just to build the presence on google search.

Q:Why no presence on linkedin? A: Try searching "Whyphy Infotech". 6Acegames is just business name we use!

Q: What about social media? A:we are not very active in social media. As you can see in our tweeter handle we have 0 followers. The reason is simple we never promoted it to our users. Although we have some followers on our instagram handle, but they follow us because we provide free perks occestionally to our audience.

If you're being honest, I'd encourage you to use your name everywhere.

Put the company name on the website, terms and conditions page, play storage page, etc. Put the CEO's name on medium posts.

As it stands, it sure looks like you've gone to lengths to make it nearly impossible to figure out who you are. Which does not scream trustworthy.

Well, something does not add up.

If you make games you are proud of, why would you hide your identity?

I know someone who has some pretty famous android/ios apps that are making him quite a good chunk of money. He pushes strongly to hide his identity because he lives here in Mexico and being known for having money/success is a recipe to get mugged or kidnapped.

I know I would do the same if I was in his position.

Hello there,

First of all sorry for my bad english. It is not my first language so.

It's my bad i should have mentioned more stuff to our medium post so that it won't leave users with any confusions. Please pardon me as this was my first post. I've never had written anything before.

You might got some questions like

Q: Who are we? A: We are simply a india based gaming startup. We had 8-10 games published on our playstore account.

Q:Why do we mentions address of UK on our tweeter handle? A:. According to google policy we have to provide a physical address if we want to use in-app-purchases. This physical address is visible publicly on our games pages.

Reason providing our uk address is we have a representative living there who can reply to any type of physical communications such as letters on behalf of us. He also can reply to various other stuffs like GDPR and different other policies. For ex. You can send a latter to the given address to get in touch with us!

Q: Where can i find your games incase i want to see them? A: You can find it on apk pure. let me provide you links - https://m.apkpure.com/developer/6Ace%20Games

Q: what about your domain 6acegames.com? A: Yes, our domain 6acegames.com is new. The reason behind it is very silly you may find it funny but still let me tell you!, at first we have bought domain sixacegames.com(you can check reg. details) thinking it will help in seo and all because we didn't want to include a number "6" in our domain. But later after our games got popular user started searching for 6Acegames that's why we bought this domain as well in may 2021 just to build the presence on google search.

Q: What about social media? A:we are not very active in social media. As you can see in our tweeter handle we have 0 followers. The reason is simple we never promoted it to our users. Although we have some followers on our Instagram handle, but they follow us because we provide free perks occasionally to our audience.

Even if the company is sketchy, shouldn't they be told very clearly exactly why they were banned, so they can appeal it if it's wrong? Imagine how ridiculous it would be if you could lose a court case without having been allowed to see the evidence.

Not apologizing for Google but if you give out too many details of why you banned someone you give people a) leverage in a lawsuit, b) information on what you are what suspect triggers they are looking for, making it easier for people to avoid automated detectoin.

I acknowledge that those points are true, but IMO, that should just be too bad for Google and they should have to tell anyway.

Maybe so, but then actual UX suffers as a result of developers crafting their way out of automated and manual detection. Every time they get killed, create another account, implement the obfuscation while still exploring users with shady monetization, make money until found again in months or years.

You only give people details if they're a good-faith actor. If a spam bot leaves garbage on my blog, I don't configure my spam filter to send them the exact words and phrases that get them detected.

I don't know anything about this company, but the other comments are giving the vibe that this company is similar in social status to a spam bot and Google's customer support is correct to cut them off with no explanation.

Mobile stores are different. If Google explains details, they will understand how google found out so they will develop better tactics to not be banned next time.

Then Google will just have to work harder. Banning legitimate customers over automation failures is not a thing that should be considered acceptable or legal.

"legitimate customers"

Do you think Google's bans have a 0% false positive rate?

OP: tells a sad story of how their infrastructure has been hacked

Also OP: has no https on the web site

Anyway, the story gives strange vibes.

The manager of the company (we can guess likely the CEO since it's a small startup) was infected by a trojan that stole passwords from his computer, but they're certain it didn't infect the network because they "wiped the hard drive." And it couldn't have got to user data because that's hosted in the cloud. Of course the fact the login details are likely on infected computers makes no difference at all...

Yeah usually I am the first to grab my pitchforks against tech giants like Google but the devs are only telling a one sided story here and their business looks far from legit, and that team of amazing devs doesn't seem very competent either if they keep installing trojans.

And note the timing. I suspect the hack did something evil to the deployed version and Google picked up on it.

Note that I am the "OP" as in I posted the link to HN but I am not the author or the developer whose story this is about.

Regarding https, looks like the parent comment linked to the "www" version of their site. Their non-www version does have https:

https://6acegames.com

Not defending the author's cleanliness or shadiness, just pointing out the facts.

Very sloppy for it to not even do a 301 redirect though. Even if you use one of those basic website builder services they will do that as standard.

Decided to run SSL Labs on the site out of curiosity[1] and they still have TLS 1.0 activated as well. That's just poor SSL config. A software company supposedly made up of talented coders should know way better.

[1] https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=6acegames.com

They do mobile games, not webdevelopment.

I don't think so. Doing mobile game dev is very different from going web dev + system admin work.

> Email address, Facebook and Twitter registered in May 2021

Their Youtube is from August 2018, 2.5 years ago just like they claim in the post. Maybe they just got a new marketing person in May instead of it being a "smoking gun" of some conspiracy

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWD2aHKFeC_rxDv3d49GOKA/abo...

Yes, I have the same feeling, something smells here, I'd expect them to be more humble once they got twitter account attention but replies look like incoherent blind swings.

Looking at their App Brain page, they are 3 year old company as claimed. You can look at their games here: https://www.appbrain.com/dev/6Ace+Games/

They do seem to exaggerate on their website about total downloads (1M Vs 10M), Employee size etc.

OP talks at length about being hacked. This, of course, would ring some alarm bells as far as protecting their user base.

Then, you post this contact form, which is not protected by https.

So, google is not dev-friendly. We know that. We have seen legitimate horror stories.

However, at what point should google step in and protect their customer base from folks who do not care about their safety?

Their actual website is https protected. The www one isn’t redirecting to it which I have seen at other places too, not exclusive to this developer. Dev is a game dev, not web or server dev so it’s understandable.

Hi there, Thanks for reading our story. You may find my English broken because it is not my first language. We're an India based gaming company. First of all, I'm sorry if you found my tont arrogant or malicious but I don't have a very strong hold on english so.

This will arise a new question in you mind:

>>Why do we mention the address of the UK on our twitter handle? 1. According to google policy we have to provide a physical address if we want to use in-app-purchases. This physical address is visible publicly on our games pages.

Reason providing our UK address is we have a representative living there who can reply to any type of physical communications such as letters on behalf of us. He also can reply to various other issues like GDPR and different other policies.

>>All our games are gambling games?

- No. This is not true. In our games you can't bet any type of real money or anything like that. It's just a simulation like other games. Yes you can buy various perks through in app purchases but it is not the gambling. If we've provided any type of gambling related stuff in our games then google wouldn't have let you survive for 3 years either!

>>Email and Social media registered in May 2021 Yes, our domain 6acegames.com is new. The reason behind it is silly. You may find it funny but still let me tell you!At first we bought domain sixacegames.com(you can check reg. details) thinking it will help in seo and all because we didn't want to include a number "6" in our domain. But later after our games got popular users started searching for 6Acegames that's why we bought this domain as well in may just to build the presence on google search.

>>And about social media, we are not very active in social media. As you can see in our twitter handle we have 0 followers. The reason is simple: we never promoted it to our users. Although we have some followers on our instagram handle, they follow us because we provide free perks occasionally to our audience.

>>Lack of information. I'm very unfamiliar with stuff like blogging and all, This is the first post I've ever written. If i forget mentioning something please let me know i'll include all the information to the post it self

A million downloads for a company founded in May is pretty good, right? Is that be typical?

Maybe, but a gambling app with localized listings for the top markets (India, US, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Mexico[0]) can get you to 1 million with very little effort.

0: https://apptweak-blog.imgix.net/images/2019/08/18/total%20do... (from https://www.apptweak.com/en/aso-blog/infographic-countries-w... )