Promo Codes for Google Play Store? How?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by raekess, Jul 17, 2013.

  1. raekess

    raekess Well-Known Member

    Feb 3, 2013
    47
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    Product Manager
    Lafayette, CO
    Hello all!

    We're getting ready to push our game out to app stores.

    We started with Google Play because we thought it'd be easy. However, we're discovering that Google Play does not issue promo codes so we can get free copies of the game out to reviewers.

    How have you all dealt with this? I've seen some info on using the License Testing feature, but to be honest, I'm not sure how seamlessly that'll work, and I want this process to be easy for android reviewers.

    Any advice?
     
  2. adrianlikesbeer

    Jun 6, 2013
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    Product Designer
    Los Angeles
    I'm actually trying to figure this one out myself. Will definitely update this thread if I find out more information.
     
  3. raekess

    raekess Well-Known Member

    Feb 3, 2013
    47
    0
    0
    Product Manager
    Lafayette, CO
    We ended up just sending the apk to reviewers. However, we made a last minute decision to go with a single app on the store with a single in-app purchase to unlock unlimited play, which complicated things even more.

    Neither Google nor Apple had an elegant way of providing an unocked version of the game to reviewers. :/
     
  4. adrianlikesbeer

    Jun 6, 2013
    9
    0
    0
    Product Designer
    Los Angeles
    Thanks for the info raekess. I'm definitely thinking on the Google Play side of things we're going to need to handle it ourselves.

    I was contemplating an "Reviewers only release" with a simple access code shared only with reviewers. However I'd be pretty annoyed if I was a regular user, downloaded an app and couldn't play it.

    I like the idea of simply shooting out the APK to reviewers if they are open to the idea. Could also have them use TestFlight...
     
  5. raekess

    raekess Well-Known Member

    Feb 3, 2013
    47
    0
    0
    Product Manager
    Lafayette, CO
    That was the only way we could think of doing it as well, but with that in-app purchase, we didn't want to send them a build without it, because then they wouldn't be reviewing the game that we would be releasing.

    Really hope that Google and Apple figure this out soon.
     

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