Google is in bad shape after banning Google account from Andrew Spinks, the leading developer of the successful independent game Terraria. Spinks game development company Re-Logic’s YouTube account has been hit by some kind of breach of terms of service, resulting in Google’s ban on the entire Spinks account, severely hampering your company’s ability doing business. After three unsuccessful weeks trying to fix the situation, Spinks announced that your company will no longer do business with Google and that the next version of Stadia Terraria it’s cancelled. “I will not be involved with a company that values its customers and partners so little”, Spinks said. “Doing business with you is a risk.”
Three weeks ago, The Official Terraria The Twitter account publicly begged YouTube for some sort of resolution to the recent ban on a Google account. The Terraria account explained, “We haven’t added anything new to our single YT channel (RelogicGames) in several months. However, we randomly received an email informing us that there was a violation of the TOS, but that it was probably accidental and, as such, the account was not would receive warnings. ” Terraria The Twitter account continued: “Three days later, the entire Google account (YT, Gmail, all Google apps, even all purchases made over the 15 years on the Google Play Store) was disabled without notice or recourse. This account is tied to many business functions and as such, the impact for us is quite substantial. “
Re-Logic’s vague reminder of “a TOS violation” highlights one of the main points of frustration of a Google account ban: you immediately lose access to your Gmail account, so you cannot provide a full account of what happened or what any communication said, because you can’t read your email. Re-Logic’s YouTube channel, which is still here, (with a profile photo disabled) looks like nothing more than trailers of the company’s games.
Spinks says his entire Google account has been down for three weeks, and Google “has done nothing but turn me around”. You can even see the quality of Google support on Twitter. After the official tweet Terrarria account, YouTube support refused Re-logic’s request to try to solve the problem privately, opting to publicly offer irrelevant suggestions to the game developer with over 30 million customers. First, YouTube asked if Re-Logic could access your banned email account, which the developer already explained has been banned. So, YouTube suggested trying Google’s account recovery system, which is only for users who forgot their Google password. Finally, YouTube shared instructions to learn how to recover a voluntarily deleted Google account, which is in no way relevant to banning an account.
So Spinks made his big announcement.
I absolutely did nothing to violate your terms of service, so I can’t understand it any other way than if you decide to burn this bridge. Consider it burnt. #Terraria for @GoogleStadia it’s cancelled. My company will no longer support any of its platforms going forward.
– Andrew Spinks (@Demilogic) February 8, 2021
Google is notorious for handling problems on Google Play and YouTube, where every rule violation seems to have been handled by a bot, and catching a real human can seem like an impossible task. Google wants people to build a business on top of their platforms, but the lack of common sense dispute resolution is, as Spinks puts it, “a disadvantage”. Google makes billions of dollars a year from these two services.
Google uses a single account system for almost all of its products. On the one hand, this makes it easier for users of a Google service to try other Google services, but it also leads to ridiculously disproportionate punishments if a user is hit by an account ban. A YouTube copyright claim, Google Pay transaction dispute, or TOS violation can cause your entire online life to be withdrawn. If you are in the Google ecosystem, a Google account ban means that you will lose access to your entire email account; all the photos you’ve ever taken; your cell phone service; your ability to communicate with friends and family; all your 2FA accounts; anything that uses Google OAuth; your application development business; your YouTube business and all of your followers; your purchased apps, games, movies, music and books; and all your contacts, documents, favorites and notes.
For many people, banning a Google account is an online death sentence and also a punishment without much resources for the victim. How could you start challenging the ban on a Google account when the first thing that happens is your Gmail stops working? If you happen to be a famous independent developer with a successful game under development for Google’s streaming service, publicly canceling your game on Twitter is probably a good way to get your case heard.