The Google unreliability and incompetency exposed!

I have a Unity game which uses Google Play Services (leaderboards, cloud saves) and Firebase Analytics
This means that I have a:
- Google Play Console project
- Game Services project
- Firebase project
- autogenerated API Console project (https://console.developers.google.com)

I implemented and tested all these services for my game and was ready to release the game in Beta.
As final steps before release I wanted to clean the Firebase logs (so I don't have test Analytics data, such as test events when I release). Since I didn't find a way to reset or delete the current data in Firebase, I deleted the whole Firebase project and quickly made a new one. Easy peasy....you'd think.
Because I deleted the Firebase project, this automatically deleted the automatically generated API Console project and created a new one for the new Firebase project.
Now this is where the problems start. After I do all this I go in my game for testing. Guess what? No more Leaderboards, no more Cloud Save, no more Google Play Games login.
The Game Services project (so, my leaderboards and cloud save) are apparently also linked to the API Console project, project which just got automatically deleted when I deleted the Firebase project. You'd expect that Google handles this gracefully and automatically links the Game Services project to the new API Console project (automatically created from when I created the new Firebase project).
Well it doesn't. Not only that it doesn't, BUT it shows on the Game Services page that the Game Services project is still linked to the OLD, NONEXISTENT API Console project, which explains why nothing works anymore. Simple, right?
At this point I basically can't release my game as Play Services are a core part of the game (mainly the leaderboards).
Now, I have no way of unlinking / linking these projects together, so I write a support mail to Guagol, explaining all that I wrote above, here are their professionally wonderful replies:

"Hi There,
Thanks for contacting Google Play Developer Support.

In order to remove Game Services from your app, you'll need to remove the link between your app and the Game Services project in the API Console by deleting the project's Client ID.

Here's how to delete your project's Client ID:

1. Sign into your API Console (console.developers.google.com).
2. Select the Credentials tab from the left menu.
3. Select the project you would like to delete.
4. Near the top of your screen, click the Delete button.

Once this Client ID is deleted, the link to the API project will be removed and Google Play Game Services will be removed from your app. Please note that the game project will still appear in the Play Console even though the link to the API project has been removed. You can simply ignore the reference to the game in the Play Console if you do not wish to use it at a later date.

I hope this helps! If you have any further questions, please let me know. I'm happy to help.

Regards,
Vivian"

OK, so far so good. So apparently I want to "remove Game Services from" my app, after I just explained to them that that is one of my core elements of the game. Cool, thanks. After this, I need to go in the API Console and remove something, so I can unlink my app. OK, excuse me while I go delete some stuff from my NONEXISTENT API Console project (he or she was referring to the old one obviously, since the new one is not linked to the Game Services project, which is the issue).
After I calm down, I write them this reply:

"Hi Vivian,

From your first sentence I can deduce that I was not clear enough with describing the problem.
I did not say that I have issues removing Game Services from my app. I said that I deleted my existing Firebase Analytics project, which deleted (automatically) the automatically created API Console project, which was linked to my Game Services project. So my Game Services project is now linked to a nonexistent Console API.
- This resulted in my Game Services NOT WORKING anymore on any device.
- This also resulted in getting ALWAYS an error when coming to my Game Services project, which you can most probably see in the logs associated with my account.
- This also resulted in the OLD, NONEXISTENT API Console project STILL being showed as linked to my Game Services, as I mentioned already.
How do I know it's nonexistent (besides obviously not existing anymore when I go to API Console)? Well If I click on the project name (= the API Console project name that shows as linked on my Game Services page) it gets me to API Console which shows me an error immediately.
I think the fix for this is that someone needs to manually unlink my Game Services from that nonexistent project, since I have no way of doing that, and then link it to the actually existing API Console project (after deleting the old Firebase project I created a new one, which in turn automatically created a new API Console project) and to also fix this Google bug and to also fix Firebase not having a reset data option).
I'll need to emphasize again that this issue is preventing me from launching my game as Game Services are a core part of the game.
I hope this and the attached screenshots better described the issue.

PS: I see we are on different timezone since you replied when I went to sleep, can you please maybe assign someone that's on a GMT +0 timezone maybe?

Thanks,"

I also attached screenshots showing the Game Services page with an error, and with the old, nonexistent project being linked there. Another one that showed the error page that I got when clicking on the nonexistent project link from the Game Services page (basically was saying that the API Console project does not exist) and another screenshot showing that I have a new, autogenerated API Console project, which I need linked to my Game Services. I was really happy that I managed to calm down and write them that nice message and was waiting haply for the new reply. Nope, not today!

"Hi [me],

Thanks for your reply and I apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you.

I checked into your existing game service in your console ([proj_name] [proj_id]) and I can confirmed that this project has been deleted.

This means that you should not make changes of this game service in the console since its no longer linked as you should expected the error code.

As I mentioned earlier from my previous email, once this Client ID is deleted, the game project will still appear in the Play Console even though the link to the API project has been removed. You can simply ignore the reference to the game in the Play Console if you do not wish to use it at a later date.

I also noticed that you have linked the app with a new project, however, I was not able to see if you have created a new game in the console and link the app with.

You can also follow this step-by-step guide here for setting up Google Play Game Services:
https://developers.google.com/games/services/console/enabling

I hope this helps, if you have any other questions. Please let me know. "

I'm out!
I'm back. Now as an actual solution I think I might be able to manually Upload a new build of my app to the Game Services project, link that app to the project, then recreate a Oauth credential in API Console with my current SHA1 to which I can then link the app that I uploaded to Game Services. But that also seems to throw and error right when I want to make the link from the app to the API Console.

So, that's just a heads-up of what you can expect from using Google services and support.
Wish you all a nice day/night and as fewer bugs as possible and as few Google interaction as possible!

 

Going to close this as it really hasn't anything to do with Unity. This is really a Google support issue. A good rule of thumb is don't delete anything major without understanding fully what the results will be.