[HN Gopher] Drastic DS Emulator Pulled from Google Play Store
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Drastic DS Emulator Pulled from Google Play Store
Author : tosh
Score : 55 points
Date : 2022-02-20 21:12 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (play.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (play.google.com)
| lelandbatey wrote:
| I wonder why it was this _specific_ Nintendo DS emulator that was
| banned? Other Nintendo DS emulators such as vDS[0] are still
| available.
|
| [0] -
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icorewwwi....
| hd4 wrote:
| Drastic is due to be added to RetroArch as a new core, so it's
| not all bad I guess.
|
| https://www.drastic-ds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13901&start=1...
| endisneigh wrote:
| Interestingly there's a Web Assembly port of DeSmuME
| (https://github.com/44670/desmume-wasm), so it works (to a
| certain extent) entirely in a web browser. You can ban from the
| stores, but as long as browsers are allowed, it'll never be
| banned completely.
|
| The greatest scam of Google and Apple is convincing millions of
| developers to learn Swift and Kotlin to make apps on their stores
| that can be swiftly (pun intended) removed from their stores.
| Though the average developer is unlikely to ever be banned, why
| even risk it?
|
| Think about the performance hit of apps that don't need to be
| native apps being ported to Web Apps. Let's be extreme and say
| it's equivalent to a Native App for a device 10 years older.
| Alright, so a modern Web App is equivalent in performance to a
| 2012 Native App running on a flagship. That's iPhone 5 and Galaxy
| Note 2. Make this conversion once and optimize your app and
| you'll never need to worry about your app being pulled ever
| again. Not to mention you can write your app once and it'll work
| on all platforms.
|
| At least in the case of this particular app it can be sideloaded,
| so it'll be fine in the end, probably.
| kevinslashslash wrote:
| > The greatest scam of Google and Apple is convincing millions
| of developers to learn Swift and Kotlin to make apps on their
| stores that can be swiftly (pun intended) removed from their
| stores
|
| I certainly won't defend Apple and Google's app store
| monopolies and control. However, Kotlin was actually a case of
| Google listening to the developer community. Google could have,
| and wanted to, push Dart (see Flutter) on Android. But the
| Android development community was already adopting JetBrain's
| Kotlin. Google listened and embraced Kotlin instead of pushing
| their own thing. It was not a hostile act.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Dare I say Google embracing and pushing Kotlin on the Android
| ecosystem was the last good thing I can remember Google
| doing. The language is such a joy to to work in without the
| pitfalls that come with Scala
| rp3 wrote:
| bogwog wrote:
| The solution isn't for everyone to make web apps, it's to
| regulate the app markets.
|
| Web apps are still at the mercy of Apple and Google. Plus,
| they're always lagging in features. Wordle for example wouldn't
| have been able to implement the sharing feature before ~2019
| because the web share API wasn't supported by major browsers
| (even though it's a thing native apps could do since forever)
| lucaaa wrote:
| Wordle could have used copy to clipboard or link to share eg.
| Twitter https://twitter.com/home?status=blabla
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Wordle _does_ use copy-to-clipboard.
| bogwog wrote:
| No it doesn't. The share button opens a native share
| dialog, which is only possible with the web share API.
| dmix wrote:
| You really think those regulations won't be heavily lobbied
| by Nintendo and DRM loving lawyers, and somehow end up even
| worse for consumers or more importantly small developers?
|
| Maybe I'm cynical but I highly doubt it's going to be "make
| your app stores completely replaceable without
| DRM/billing/taxation/etc schemes and allow unrestricted
| sideloading".
| bogwog wrote:
| It can't possibly get worse for consumers
| endisneigh wrote:
| > The solution isn't for everyone to make web apps, it's to
| regulate the app markets.
|
| I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the
| scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass
| would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps
| arbitrarily?
|
| > Web apps are still at the mercy of Apple and Google.
|
| Not really. Apple and Google don't control the entire
| internet. Though they do have some level of control of the
| APIs available, ultimately they themselves use the same APIs
| as well, so...
|
| In any case I disagree with you - web apps are the solution
| because every app that becomes a Web App instead of native
| app results in a loosening in the grip that is the
| Apple/Google duopoly. Once at a critical mass, sites will pop
| up to curate all of these new found web apps, APIs will be
| developed to facilitate payments for these apps, and so
| forth.
|
| Ironically Google initially was not able to compete with
| Apple with respect to app store curation and promoted PWAs
| aggressively, but no one really bit. If people just went with
| that to begin with we wouldn't be in this situation now. So
| instead of going with PWAs, Google just ended up copying
| Apple and now both of them just rent seek instead of one.
|
| Prior to PWAs, there were "responsive pages" and Steve Jobs
| in 2007 actually thought that it would make more sense of all
| iPhone apps were just responsive apps instead of native apps,
| and locked down the API to strictly first party apps.
|
| Hackers jail broke the iPhone to unlock all of the
| functionality, forcing Apple to launch the App Store,
| resulting in the situation now before us.
|
| We're being given a second chance here with WebAssembly.
| Let's not screw it up this time around, ya?
| josephcsible wrote:
| > I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the
| scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to
| pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps
| arbitrarily?
|
| Regulate the markets by letting other stores compete, not
| by regulating the current monopolistic stores. Force OS
| developers to make it easy and practical to use alternative
| app stores, and able to compete fairly with the first-party
| ones. On iOS, you can't do so at all without jailbreaking,
| and on Android, there's tons of scary warnings, and there's
| some stuff like automatic background updates that are
| impossible for anything but the Play Store unless you root.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Why would regulation result in more permissiveness? From
| my reading most implemented regulation has resulted in
| more restrictiveness, and things like DRM.
|
| If that happened I'd love it though, as the precedent
| would presumably allow for all stores, like game
| consoles, appliances, etc. to open up their operating
| systems to allow any arbitrary software to be installed.
|
| Even if there were more app stores I bet it would result
| in all apps having to be signed by Google, in the same
| way anyone can purchase their own domain but are still
| limited in that DNS is centralized.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Even if there were more app stores I bet it would
| result in all apps having to be signed by Google
|
| That's the kind of thing I'd want the regulation to ban.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I'm sure, but what I'm saying what proposals that are
| realistically going to pass do that? Look at the history
| of software regulation, it generally restricts things.
| bogwog wrote:
| > I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the
| scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to
| pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps
| arbitrarily?
|
| Forcing them to allow alternative app stores for starters.
| The only reason they can get away with doing this stuff is
| because they each have 100% market share.
| rendall wrote:
| What was this app meant to do?
| haunter wrote:
| Nintendo DS emulator
| [deleted]
| dindresto wrote:
| Can't even access it as someone who bought the app... That's
| really unfortunate.
| mastazi wrote:
| You will probably have to uninstall the Google Play version and
| reinstall through sideloading
| kragen wrote:
| Are you saying that you have the app previously installed on
| your phone, and it has ceased to work on that same phone, even
| though you didn't do something like a restore-from-backup in
| the interim? That's my interpretation of your comment but I
| could be misreading you.
| dindresto wrote:
| No it works on devices where I still have it installed :)
| just meant I can't install it from the store, which is
| different from Steam where you are still able to install
| games you bought even if their store page got taken down
| kragen wrote:
| Thank you for the correction!
| ktzar wrote:
| Is there a way to request your money back? I'm surprised Google
| can just pull an app you've payed for. But well... Ts&Cs you
| never read.
| tasha0663 wrote:
| I think this is part of why they make it so damn hard to find
| apps you already bought or downloaded before. AFAIK there's no
| way to search these, just a huge list to scroll through in no
| identifiable order, and anything that was removed or
| incompatible with the current device just isn't there.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I wonder if this is because of BIOS licensing. I haven't used
| Drastic in a while, but I do know that "perfect" DS emulation
| requires a couple files that are only available by dumping from
| your own machine... Nintendo has been on a copright troll-roll
| with the recent GilvaSunner takedowns, I almost wonder if this is
| part of that initiative.
|
| In any case, this is another one for the "why sideloading is
| important" wall, it shouldn't be too big of a deal since the
| Drastic developers can continue distribution with or without
| Google's blessing. No Bleem! politics here, just a little bit of
| downtime so the devs can set up their own payment portal and dump
| the credentials of their paid customers for continued support.
| Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they just open sourced the thing
| and threw it to the community. DS emulators are a dime a dozen
| these days, and the devs have probably already made their money
| here. Any way it breaks, it should be a win-win situation though.
| Gigachad wrote:
| It's been a very long time since I used Drastic but I remember
| it being vastly better than the other emulators at the time.
| Was the only one able to run DS games at full speed on my 2012
| Nexus 7. The open source alternatives may have caught up by now
| though.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Nintendo as a brand is dead to me.
| Larrikin wrote:
| They seem very polarizing to the adult community. I loved video
| games from all kinds of companies when I was younger and had
| hours a day to play games. But as an adult I can't imagine
| buying a non Nintendo system. The few hours a month when I
| actually want to play video games and have the time I'd rather
| load up some guaranteed fun, versus sit through huge chunks of
| AAA game story plot points just to shoot the Nazis, monster,
| etc or spend those same hours researching indie games that
| might be as fun as whatever Nintendo has put out recently.
|
| Only thing really worth taking the risk on these days is music
| games, but the good ones are few and far between. The
| international Bemani community has seemingly fully committed to
| the arcade rip and Konami doesn't seem to care to try and bring
| them back to the home console since they aren't cutting into
| arcade unit sales.
| kcindric wrote:
| Yes. As I grow older I'm more drawn to Nintendo ecosystem
| than any other due to games that are so much packed with fun
| and pretty immediate in their delivery.
| wnevets wrote:
| and yet the Beijing 2022 Games[1] app with known security
| vulnerabilities [2] is still on the Google Play Store.
|
| [1]
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.systoon.do...
|
| [2] https://citizenlab.ca/2022/01/cross-country-exposure-
| analysi...
| trollied wrote:
| The developer is also missing:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Exophase
|
| Must have been banned.
|
| Reddit thread discussing this:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/EmulationOnAndroid/comments/sx1tzw/...
| Shadonototra wrote:
| i once thought of purchasing an android based handheld console
| like the ayn odin, i'm now more convinced the Steam Deck is the
| perfect choice, linux to the rescue, as always
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(page generated 2022-02-20 23:00 UTC)