Do you guys use your real address for publishing on the play store?

Hey guys,

yesterday I looked deeper into publishing a game. Then I realized you had to submit an address which is displayed on your game's page in the play store. I'm not really comfortable with that to be honest. It's the internet after all.

What are you guys doing? Do you use a fake address? I guess google would never contact you with that address anyway.

Thanks in advance

 

Do not use fake address. Use legal address (even legal mail forwarding service). This is because you're a merchant when you sell something on the Play Store and if someone has to sue you or they need to give you other papers officially, they need a physical address to serve the papers (and generally contact you in physical form).
You can use your home address or you can use mail forwarding legal service does not matter.

It is not for Google.

 

My business address is a mailbox at the UPS store. No worries about weirdo's showing up complaining about losing an in game item, and the UPS store automatically throws out anything that appears to be junk mail already. I'd suggest doing the same.

 

I incorporated (mostly as a way to mitigate mail spam when releasing games because oooooooooooh boy) and that came with the option to rent a private mailbox for... something ridiculously low like $12 a month and use that for my business address. It's honestly such a small payment that I don't even notice it.

 

Afaik your address is only displayed if you actually charge people - let it be paid apps or in-app purchases.
A mailbox (as suggested above) will work.

 

You should definitely set up a business address, separate from your physical home address. You don't want some disgruntled or deluded fan turning up at your home. Most post offices provide a PO box address precisely for this purpose.

Some people even go as far as suggesting to set your PO box up in a different suburb or town to the one you live in. This is probably more relevant for YouTubers instead of game developers. But its worth considering if your game has potential to stir up controversy.

Stay safe people!

 

I actually think this kind of concern is one of the best pro-publisher arguments. I would think it's hard to get the same level of anonymity that you can have when a publisher is between you and the public.

It's also a good argument for making only games that target less toxic demographics -_-.


I'm a bit on the parnoid side and go to great lengths to separate my multiple online identities, and yet one day an admin on a gaming forum sent me a private message that demonstrated that he had basically found out who I am and where I live. He wanted to recruit me for writing staff on their site, so nothing bad happened from it, but it was eye-opening. You slip up once, and it can be enough to find you.

 

As an important piece of advice (at least for US/Canada residents), some companies don't let you enter PO box addresses when you're dealing with accounts that handle money, so watch out for that before making any decisions.

 

Setup an company through a registered agent. Then your company address is the registered agents address. Registered agents then scan any mail you get and email it to you.

 

Interesting that no other store makes you display a physical address, though. Not iOS app store, Steam, GOG, Unity asset store, etc.

--Eric

 

I'm not sure, but I think they only added it within the last year or so as a paltry effort put towards cracking down on low-quality titles being churned out en-masse by small developers using multiple fake Google developer accounts. I seem to recall them making some bizarre choice like that recently, at least.

 

It is legality: in case of App Store, Steam, etc, legally the store is the merchant and they pay you share of the income. In case of the Google Play Store, they are just an intermediate, you're the merchant you sell your stuff. This is why you need to give an address where your business can be reached as I stated above: for legal reasons. The registered agent is good enough.
At least it was the thing in the past. But I'm not sure, I'm not selling anything in any of these stores currently, I just investigated way back when I started to think about game developing and I was playing with the idea to do mobile stuff.

 

Thanks for all your answers. After reading the information from google it seems to be as Mauri said. Address is displayed when you sell something (IAP or purchase the app). However I also found apps with no IAPs or a purchase price. Not even with ads and there was the address also displayed. Does sombody know why it is that way?

 

Once it were a paid app, the address should be there. It's physical contact address for the customers. Unless it's buggy, you probably see apps once were paid ones.