Rekto DigitalInsightsPublishing on Google Play

How to publish an Android game on Google Play: what we learned shipping two games

Updated October 16, 2026 · By the Rekto Digital team

Publishing an Android game takes more than uploading a build. We shipped Meow Jar and Plonk on Google Play as Rekto Digital, and this is the checklist we now follow every time, from the developer account to the first ad request.

What do you need before you start?

• A Google Play developer account. We publish as an organization (Rekto Digital LLC), so the store shows the company, not a person. An organization account asks for business details and verification. New personal accounts must first run a closed test with at least 12 testers for 14 days before they can publish; check Google's current rules for your account type.
• A privacy policy at a public URL. Play requires one for every app. Ours are published on our own website: see the Meow Jar and Plonk policies.
• A website you control. The developer website on your listing is also where ad networks look for your app-ads.txt file.
• Payments and tax details in Play Console, if you will earn money from sales or ads.

How do you make a store listing that converts?

• Say what the game is in the title. "Plonk: Block Puzzle Game" tells people and search what they are looking at.
• Screenshots for every device you support. Meow Jar runs on phones, tablets and foldables, so its listing shows both phone and tablet screenshots.
• Translate the listing, not only the game. Plonk is playable in 18 languages, and its store listing is translated into 47.
• A short gameplay video shows the game in motion before anyone installs it.

Which forms does Google Play ask you to fill?

• Data safety: what data the app collects and shares. If you add an ads SDK, this changes, so update it with the release that adds ads.
• Contains ads: declare it as soon as any build shows ads, even optional reward videos.
• Content rating and target audience questionnaires.
• App access, if parts of the app need a login.

How do you set up ads without hurting the game?

Both our games show only optional reward videos: the player chooses to watch one for a bonus, and nothing interrupts play. We set them up with Google AdMob: the apps and rewarded ad units, a payments profile, and an app-ads.txt file at the root of our developer website (rektodigital.com/app-ads.txt) with our publisher ID.

Then came the part no guide warned us about: AdMob turned the account down twice, with a generic "does not meet our program criteria" email, while the games were new and had few daily players. Plan for that: have a second ad network ready, keep the ad code easy to switch, and apply again once the games have real daily users. app-ads.txt also takes days to be crawled.

What happens after launch?

• Ship small updates often, with release notes in each listing language.
• Test on real screen sizes: tablet and foldable layouts are where our games needed the most layout fixes.
• Send people to the store from your own site with tracked links, so Play Console shows which pages bring installs.

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