GearVR submission team no longer giving app feedback

[Zaeran]

Hey guys,

Just an FYI to prospective developers out there, GearVR's submissions team is no longer providing feedback on submitted apps. I've been told this in no uncertain terms by the submission team, and have attached the actual conversation that took place for those that don't believe me.

If you don't have a perfect app on submission, you'll just be rejected with the message "This build isn't passing our QA review, so we wont be able to accept this submission."

If you want to know why, you'll be told "We don't provide feedback on apps."

And don't even bother referencing their own submission guidelines, where it states that "In the event that your app doesn’t pass our initial review, we encourage you to incorporate the feedback of our developer relations team and resubmit your app when you’re ready", because that's "an outdated document".

So anyway, don't bother submitting a GearVR app unless you have a 100% perfect submission.

[tommosaur]

I have to say i'm quite worried/depressed about this, too.
I made a few smaller apps for the gear VR and worked on one bigger one so far.
On all of them it took several weeks for them to actually get reviewed and then for one (the biggest one of them) i received feedback that they thought the app was not quite ready for the store yet but they thought it was conceptually interesting and they'd encourage me to work further on it. That sorta encouraged me really, at least they liked the concept 😃 Then i wrote back asking if they have any specific feedback what to change/add/ improve and didn't get any reply anymore, so yeah, then difficult/risky for me to keep working on it.

On several of the other small apps i just got a rejection without any feedback.
On most of them i wasn't very bummed out about that since i was just trying out different things, but on one of them, that was a foto/video filter kinda app where one can apply filters on the camera view. And there it bummed me out a bit that it was rejected and now an app with pretty similar functionality has been approved and just went live, a month after mine was rejected (and a good bit longer since i had submitted it for review).
It's worrying when one app gets rejected without any feedback/reasoning/suggestions for improvement given and then a month later another app with very similar concept makes it through.

And besides that specific case, yeah, it's just difficult as dev when one has no idea how long a review will take and if something gets rejected what to improve/change when no feedback is given.
It makes the whole development so much more risky.

I'm a single indie dev and basically i earn my living doing client projects and initially i thought i could maybe do a few fun small things for the gear VR in between client projects and thanks to that save up for a VR ready new PC (my pc is pretty outdated) and then work on a bigger game for the rift.

But yeah, now the gear VR review system makes the whole gear VR dev feel quite risky in itself.
I'd love to improve my apps and games more but i can't just work endlessly on them with my limited financial resources and, especially not when not even knowing what the fellas would like to have added/changed/improved to get an app approved if it has been rejected without specific or any reason given.

[bo3b]

Not giving a reason for rejection is absolutely unacceptable.

Until I see some response to this thread, I cannot continue my Rift development.  There is no way I can afford to put my time and money into something with the risk of rejection and no way to fix it.

I say this as a Kickstarter backer and big proponent of Oculus.  

You MUST address this, developers make the content that you desperately need.  Treat us with respect for the risks we take on your behalf.

[CodingJar]

Just an update:  We got rejected again after over 3 weeks in the submission process.  They refuse to give feedback, despite many exchanges with the developer relations team.  I've seen a few sites now like "Sideload VR" that allow distribution of builds.  I wonder if a black market will eventually appear.

[Anonymous]

I feel like the worst part is that no one from Oculus has even come on this thread and been like, "TS that our permanent policy" or "Sorry, we're really busy and are working on it." Instead it's like a double burn.  😞 We're not even valuable enough to dignify with a response. 

[cybereality]

I'm really sorry. I haven't commented because this is a particularly hot topic.

Basically, submitted apps can be rejected for numerous reasons. In many cases, the overall quality of a submission could be so low that there is not a clear path the fix the game or confidence that adjusting a few things would even raise the bar high enough to be accepted. I realize this is a poor situation for some developers, and it's debatable whether this is the right policy, but it's where we're at today.

However, keep in mind, you are still free to release your game on other places, for example on your website or various sites that have lists of VR apps. You can make your app free to even sell it. So it's not like you are blocked from releasing completely. Hope that helps.

[motorsep]

How would one be able to release a Gear VR app for everyone to run outside Oculus Store?

I believe that's the key problem here.

[cybereality]

Yes, you are correct. At this moment you do need to go through the Oculus Store. I was referring to the review process in general, for example on PC where there are different distribution methods. It's possible in the future there will be opportunities to give mobile devs more options, but nothing concrete I can talk about now.

[bo3b]

First off, REALLY appreciate you commenting here cybereality.  Communication dramatically improves our opinion of Oculus.  In my case it is literally the difference between continuing to work on the project or not, so thank you.


For apps that are so terrible that they cannot be saved, please accept a humble suggestion: tell them anyway.  Be blunt, but tell them.

As a developer, it would make a huge difference to me to know whether I was in the ballpark, or just miles away.  It's the difference between continuing to work on something, or abandoning a bad project.  The truth will hurt of course, and logically the developer should know it's bad.  

The more important part is to always communicate with your developers, even if they are stupid.  

(If you look up my background, I worked in Apple Developer Technical Support for years and years. I'm not guessing here.)


If it's costing you too much money for free submissions, add a smallish but required submission fee of say $100.  That weeds out a lot of people who are just taking a flyer on it.  

If you don't want to do that, make the default communication be "Your app is below our minimum standards and needs too much work to provide specific feedback.  Please post on the forums/reddit to get feedback."

It's important that you always communicate, even when it's bad news.

[motorsep]

$100 fee doesn't sit well with me, if it's per each submission o.O

[Anonymous]

Thanks for commenting @cybereality.

It's disappointing, given that sharing an app for Gear VR anywhere else is just about impossible since you need to have the app signed. If the advice is to post is somewhere outside the store, maybe Oculus should just remove the Signature File system.