O drastic, one of the best emulators in the world. Nintendo DS to Android just got free for everyone to download. But the “promotion” of the emulator was “kind of forced”, as Drastic was removed from Google Play.
Released on Google's app store in 2013, this Nintendo DS emulator seemed immune to any sort of attempt to bring it down. The app has accumulated more than one million downloads on the store, all paid for.
The bullshit is huge, so here's a summary.
DraStic Removido da Google Play
DraStic was removed from Google Play yesterday (21), leaving many users who paid for the app without access to the emulator.
An impersonator of the app's official developer, appeared on Reddit posing as the creator of DraStic. He briefly explained the removal of the emulator from Google Play and made a free version available for everyone to download while he “fixed” the problem on the Play Store.
Today, 22, Exophase (espfusion), the real developer went public on Reddit clarifying the removal of the emulator.
According to Exophase, Google has requested that the emulator be removed from the Google Play app store. Among the problems was the “short description” of DraStic.
Also according to the developer, if for some reason the DraStic app does not reappear on Google Play, it will only be released on the store in the next update, which is when the new file management system will be implemented to suit Android 11 and 12.
See the translation of the topic on Reddit:
Hello, as many of you probably know, I am the main developer of the application. I'm just now hearing about what happened, of course these things always have to happen over a random long weekend. Not that that's much of an excuse, I know. I'll try to get straight to the point:
- Google removed the app because the app's "short description" was identical to the app's name, which I don't think so, even though the "long description" was filled in
- It's a temporary problem that should go away when fixed, or so they say. So, assuming there are no more issues, this shouldn't mean a re-listing of apps...
- If, for whatever reason, we didn't sell a new listing, it would be free. Which we plan to do soon anyway. I'm waiting for an update to the file handling code that's almost ready (I'm not developing it myself, but I'm pretty confident it's close)
- We have long had a problem updating the app description because Google at some point decided to be too antagonistic towards our description terms, rejecting the descriptions without telling us why. So I didn't want to try to update the description until we had to do with a new version, because it can take several iterations (with each taking hours of response time) before we even get anything allowed.
- I've tried doing a new description update now in an attempt to fix things. Maybe this will result in re-enrollment or maybe I have to keep fixing things. There's no way to know yet. We'll have to see.
I have no idea who was doing this very elaborate and convincing representation of me, but it's very interesting that someone was ready to do this as soon as it happened. The app rejection issue could have been easily detected automatically, but it could also be because it was reported and that this is yet another targeted effort by malicious actors trying to mess with the emulator so they can sell it.
While I haven't “officially approved” downloading the APK from elsewhere, it doesn't bother me if people do. I think go ahead if you want.
EDIT: As everyone noticed the forum is dead, but Discord is… well, mostly not dead. This link should work > https://discord.gg/atMnUMN
Read also:
DraStic is the best Nintendo DS emulator for Android
25 Best Games for DraStic (Nintendo DS Emulator)
Best Emulators to Play Console Games on Android
DraStic for free? Yea!
The DraStic emulator cost around R$25 reais and is now available for free.
But calm down that like everything in the world of emulation, this was also a reason for bullshit.
The developer had previously demonstrated plans to make the emulator app available for free on Google Play. The plan was to adapt DraStic to free software licenses like GNU.
It was then that someone else made a free APK of DraStic available. This is not the new version of the emulator, but a 2020 version.
According to the dev himself, he has no idea who made this version, but after analyzing it, he came to the conclusion that everything is fine. This version can stay as “the official one” until they release the updated version supporting Android 11 and 12.
It didn't take long, of course, for the Drastic APK to be spread on the internet and now we have another quality emulator that is 100% free.
It is worth remembering once again that this is not the updated version of the emulator. As soon as the official developer makes it available, we will update the article.
official website apk
APK (DIRECT LINK)
Source: Reddit
