Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

super256

2 hours ago

107points

28 comments

Comments

bengotow•1 hour ago

Just want to drive by and mention - a friend told me to play DDLC and I was highly skeptical given the anime pin-up girl art style. I eventually gave in and gave it a shot.

It's an amazing "playable story" unlike anything I have ever played. Super creative and well worth the couple hours it takes to play. I think it could use a few trigger warnings and it should be rated PG-13 / R, but there's stuff on Netflix 10x more disturbing so I don't quite grok the Google push back on this one.

oceansky•1 hour ago

This genre of games are called visual novels.

Doki Doki was created with the Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine by the way.

senkora•1 hour ago

The poems are pretty good too.

politelemon•22 minutes ago

TV shows have reached a point where the ratings are blurry and R content is becoming normalised and ubiquitous with little to no enforcement.

Games are still seen as something children engage in despite the average gamers being adults.

anonymous908213•1 hour ago

1bil+ people have surrendered their right to artistic expression to Google, and another 1bil+ to Apple, and another 1bil+ to Microsoft. Many more billions have surrendered it to Visa and Mastercard. The world will only continue to get worse for the foreseeable future as five corporations assert global control over what is allowed to be published. It is mournful knowing that humanity's peak is behind us.

lxgr•17 minutes ago

Hey, on the other hand, zero malware! It is zero, right? Please say it's zero...

Just today I found a malicious version of Ledger on the macOS app store. It's been there for five weeks, and there are already some anecdotes out there of people losing their coins.

I guess that's somehow the developer's fault for not "staking their claim" to their name, as Apple seems to only monitor for malicious duplicate submissions if the original is in the App Store to begin with...

oceansky•1 hour ago

Brazil and India have created alternatives to Mastercard/Visa duopoly. EU is seeking to do the same.

MikeTheGreat•2 minutes ago

I'm pretty sure that I know what the answer is (sadly), but I'll try anyways:

Any chance folks in the US can use these, in the US?

This is a genuine question, although I don't have my hopes up. It would be nice to have some actual competition / choices

0x3f•2 minutes ago

The EU 'seeks' to do a lot of things but is notoriously ineffective.

dtech•26 minutes ago

Many European countries have had viable online alternatives since forever, and a lot of them are being consolidated into Werk, which will also enable physical payments

gambiting•38 minutes ago

Many countries have alternatives already. In Poland Blik is ubiquitous and very very easy to use. And I love how it's implemented, Visa and MasterCard could learn from it.

Tldr - you open the app on your phone and it gives you a 6 digit BLIK code, you give that code to the seller, then a notification comes up on the app saying "seller X is trying to debit your account by amount Y, agree?". It's brilliant because then the seller gets nothing identifiable about you. Even if someone overhears the code, it's only valid 60 second so it's useless. Unlike with regular cards there is no risk of losing one or using a fake terminal that scans your card instead. And any transaction has to be explicitly rather than implicitly approved. Love it.

add-sub-mul-div•20 minutes ago

Not Microsoft. "Sideloading" is not even a term in Windows culture the way it is with Apple and Google because it's not a second-class citizen.

girvo•16 minutes ago

That’s not for lack of trying, though: remember Windows RT?

Ferret7446•12 minutes ago

I wonder if this was coerced by Visa/MasterCard yet again, as they have done against many Japanese styled games in the past years. Despite some motions from the current administration, the payment processor monopoly seems keen on policing the public, which is one reason why crypto must still exist as a plan B payment method.

user34283•10 minutes ago

Maybe regulators can be bothered this decade to do something about these corporations abusing their power over mobile app distribution and payment processing.

The EU's DMA has been a step in the right direction, even if it's yet been fairly toothless with Apple and Google flouting it.

jhbadger•1 hour ago

DDLC is a disturbing (good, but disturbing) game that opens as a bright cheerful one. So long as the description explained what the user is in for later on, I think Google shouldn't have done this. I haven't seen the Android version; I played it on PC, but as it is basically a "visual novel" I doubt there was very much difference between them.

throwaway290•1 hour ago

that's valuable info.

wikipedia actually makes the game sounds interesting unlike a typical dating sim.

WARNING possible spoilers, don't read if you plan to play, but just know it's not just a dating sim.

> while it appears to be a light-hearted dating simulator, it is a metafictional psychological horror game that extensively breaks the fourth wall.

> Reviewers pointed out that the game's horror was built on the destruction of a sense of control over what happens in the game and the feeling of helplessness that stems from the distortions in the game's world

YawningAngel•1 hour ago

I played this game recently and you have to click through several screens telling you that it's disturbing to open and play it

nottorp•1 hour ago

It's worth the experience to play that game once.

And I guess it's not worth porting games for adults to walled gardens.

Note that i said games for adults, not adult content. If you're expecting porn, move along.

mghackerlady•1 hour ago

It's totally free, give it a try if you're interested! It's also been ported to a variety of platforms unofficially (Wii and 3DS ottomh)

wavemode•28 minutes ago

Surprising, even by Google's standards. DDLC is a violent game but not much more. What app store rule exactly is it breaking?

the_pwner224•6 minutes ago

"Violent"? Do you consider news reporting to be violent too? This isn't remotely in the league of all the shooter games you can find on the store.

throwaway85825•1 hour ago

Walled gardens are antithetical to personal computing. Google is killing ChromeOS in favor of Android.

j-bos•31 minutes ago

I guess they don't like Monika.

oceansky•1 hour ago

Well, at least we can "sideload" this easily with minimum attrition, right?

zb3•1 hour ago

If you wait 18 years before being able to install apps outside Google Play you get a nice bonus of automatically becoming age verified in a private manner. So don't complain, it's for your own good.

zb3•1 hour ago

Google and Apple know better than you what you want to play and what you want to do on your phone. Visa and Mastercard know better than you what you want to buy. Don't disagree with them, because they're only doing this for your own good.

CivBase•1 hour ago

This is why we need developer verification - so Google can protect us from threats like this /s