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Another bummer with AppUp

My app has failed to launch on 2 OSes
XP SP3 and Windows 7 Starter

Both failed to load the OpenGL shaders.
So if you're using AppGameKit with shaders you'll probably fail too.

I'm going to see what I can do to resubmit and write my findings here.

Also I see a note from them saying that touch sensors aren't working in Windows 8



Yay for AppUp...

Sorry to hear that. I recall AppUp being very peculiar when it came to validating apps during the App Innovation Contest. Very few developers were able to get their AppGameKit app to pass under Windows 7 (let alone XP) even if it worked fine on every machine they personally tested it on.

It took Intel a long time to review the apps and seems they were testing some of them on very low end machines with no video drivers or anything installed. The worst part was when they rejected my app and others because we didn't include a trademark symbol in the meta description when mentioning Ultrabook (they did that to me a day before the deadline, and some others never got their app in on time as a result). Not to mention the whole code signing certificate madness.

For the record, my winning app entry from the App Innovation contest has still only been downloaded 300 or so times in the past six months. To be fair, it is also currently only visible to users on Windows 8 and Ultrabooks through the AppUp application, but I still don't see AppUp as a high traffic outlet. By contrast, the latest free AppGameKit app I released on iTunes has gotten 1,200 downloads in a few weeks with no promotion at all.

Thanks, xCept. I'm definitely not publishing my next game through AppUp. There is way too many complications. I'll list them here for others to decide if they are willing to work with it (and I need to vent).

As you say they test on very low-end machines. This is true even if you set the Windows Experience Index (WEI) to a relatively high level.

Another issue is that they use WEI which is a very... shortsighted compatibility checker.

And then they only allow you to select Windows 8, Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 7 32-bit, and Windows XP SP3 from their OS list. So if something fails on the ever-so-widely-used Windows 7 Starter only, then you cannot simply exclude it. Your other choices are Ultrabook, Netbook, and Laptop. I only have laptops to test on so I can't guarantee full compatibility with the other two, nor do they provide any information on the differences.

Next, they take approximately 1 week to review your submission and then appear to provide no assistance after rejection. I've asked again for assistance from them this time, but I'm not feeling hopeful.

And then you struck gold with me on the certificate. It's insane. It took 1 week for Comodo (their 3rd party certificate issuer) to contact me to tell me that they need to call me AND they wouldn't call me without having my business # listed on Superpages or something similar. After begrudgingly listing my cell # on super pages they took almost another week to call me to verify I'm a real person... all this even though I had to submit a phone number to AppUp.

At this point they've made it pretty clear that they don't really care to work with small Indie Developers and their market is subpar. Even their AppUp program for Win7 is very slow to load and the user interface doesn't function well (can't even scroll with a mouse wheel). Oh and their super awesome website is extremely slow and will often not even work correctly (like someone is constantly fiddling with the CSS or something). And it's not just my machine, I've tested on 2 other machines at home with various browsers.

Anyway... rant over... to those who've listened, I thank you.

PS:
xCept - I sent you an email a while back via your forum email and your email on Google Play. Is there a better way to contact you? Shoot me an email if you want.

That ordeal with Comodo still gives me nightmares. It took nearly a month for me to finally get the Comodo certificate. I sent them copies of my driver's license, bank account statements, telephone bill including phone number, domain WHOIS confirmation, domain hosting account screenshot, business entity registration papers, and even some other tax slips to prove I was who I claimed!

Even after all of that they kept pointing me to very fishy "directory listing" sites, most of which were from other countries or no longer existent, and telling me to add my info there for the callback. I ended up registering first with Manta and submitting all of my information, only to find out they were going to charge money and it'd take weeks to get my info added there. I still get bulk emails every day from Manta due to this. I then added my personal info and phone number to another white page directory (which I had really wanted to keep private).

The person(s) handling Comodo support spoke very limited English and repeated the same thing over and over, never accepting anything as proof until our phone numbers were on some random public website. I even uploaded my contact details to one of my own personal sites after providing them proof that I owned it and they wouldn't accept it. It still infuriates me. I recently did a case study interview for Intel but can't recall if I brought this matter up--though I did speak critically of the AppUp review process.

AppUp is way beyond Google, Apple, Microsoft and every other 'market' service I've ever dealt with as far as how ridiculous their requests are.

P.S., Oops! I did get both your emails, and replied to what I thought was your email some time ago. Just checked, and turns out it was another member from this forum instead, whereby my response probably made little sense to their question lol. Will forward you what I wrote.

Sounds like you went through more than me, which is a good reminder... I need to pull my number from superpages!

I've been trolling around trying to find someone other than Intel saying something good about AppUp, but haven't found anything. I found one blog post about a somewhat popular app that has 5k-10k downloads on Android and they said only 4 downloads from AppUp. It could be their app, but even looking at the top downloads on AppUp and trying to judge by comparing the # of reviews... it looks quite grim.

Anyway, I'll give them a bit more of a chance, this is a free game with ad support so I can't waste much more time on it!

Would love to hear other stories here. Something GOOD about AppUp would be nice (if it exists)

Well... rejection number 3!!!
This time the game failed a test that it passed on a previous validation. Touch input on Windows 8 doesn't work...
It's good to see that they obviously didn't review the previous validation report and that their rules are inconsistent.

Also they gave me a warning for improper English in the game.
I use "Hi Score" instead of "High Score." This was a stylistic choice.
I wonder if they also proofread the intro story. I would understand if this was hard to understand, but I'm pretty sure it isn't.

*sigh*

Wow... I guess they never played the original Frogger or the thousands of others games that use "Hi-Score" instead. I think that's taking the role of reviewer a bit too far. I dealt with a similar experience when I developed a 'snake' app for Panasonic's obscure VIERA Connect market (Smart TVs). The reviewer rejected it repeatedly based on his own ideas of what the game should be like--once because he felt the movement was too fast, another because he didn't like the way it saved the user's name for easy input on subsequent high scores, etc. Needless to say I never developed again for them, and I was one of the few indie developers on board (it cost more than Apple's developer license and is a virtually non-existent market).

Ah thank you for that example!
I knew that others use "hi score" too, but frogger would put these guys in their place! Fortunately they didn't actually fail me for it, but gave a warning instead.
After a bit of complaining with my last rejection I have a contact who actually communicates back with me on these issues. The validation team does not respond.

Anyway, he said to just resubmit and the app will not fail for touch issues. We'll see!!

about your shaders so can you write a side note on specific requirements of your app to intel when they Review.

Then could you write wath version of open gl it neads.

My entry for the appup competition passed the first time and whas pretty fast on there store.

But they had one single note and that whas how i spelled scoore and not score.

The reviewer team sits in india if i remember it right.

That's good to know! Thanks for sharing. That means it might be possible for me to get the app on XP and Netbooks.

Everyone I've talked to from intel seems to be in India.