Kongregate app pulled from Android Marketplace, CEO hopes it's just a misunderstanding

We've heard of apps getting 187'd from the iTunes App Store ad nauseum, but Google's Android Marketplace? That's pretty novel. In what is probably the most high profile bait-and-switch since the mobile platform's launch, Kongregate found its eponymous software pulled on the very same day it came out. As CEO Jim Greer tells Joystiq, the app was pulled due to the "claim you can't use their app store to distribute another app store." Which is all well and good until you realize that what Kongregate the app does is simply serve as a portal for Kongregrate the mobile site -- Greer says it's the same experience as visiting m.kongregate.com to play its free Flash games -- with the option for offline mode.

"It's all essentially cached content delivered in a browser," he said, "which to me is just bizarre that that would be considered an 'app store.'" In fact, as Greer notes, Android's rule of thumb here for disallowing Kongregate could also apply to popular apps like Amazon's Kindle. The Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement says, "you may not use the Market to distribute or make available any Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market," with Product defined broadly as "Software, content and digital materials created for Devices in accordance with the Android SDK and distributed via the Market."

Greer also says a number of people in Google had seen it previously and liked the app (not the ones who ultimately ! pulled i t, mind you), and he hopes this is all some grand misunderstanding. We hope so, too -- that, or Google presents its own compelling version of events and we're left deliberating to ourselves. In the meantime, the app is still available for side loading care of Kongregate's website. Nothing like a backup plan, eh?

Kongregate app pulled from Android Marketplace, CEO hopes it's just a misunderstanding originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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