The first RuStore Mobile Conf, a conference on mobile Android development, monetization, and application distribution, concluded over the weekend.
The domestic аналог of Google Play reached an audience of 22.5 million people in October 2023. Currently, its platform features over 20,000 applications and games from Russian and foreign developers.
"Perviy Tehnicheskiy" visited RuStore Mobile Conf and gathered answers to the most pressing questions about RuStore.
Why is RuStore and other domestic application markets even needed?
Mobile application stores in global practice help demonopolize markets: Apple, Google, Huawei, and other giants with their own set of rules and applications should have an alternative.
For Russia, its own stores are not only a response to the policies of global companies towards major players, but also to sanctions. Sanctions have helped the development of domestic applications and resources for their sale. And in the event of the lifting of sanctions, RuStore is already ready to scale to the international market.
For the developers themselves in Russia, domestic application marketplaces offer the opportunity to influence the review process - the moderation procedure for a product or its updates before release on the trading platform.
Developers may have significant financial obligations tied to the timing of the review and placement of an application or game on the marketplace.
If, for example, instead of New Year's, a game that specified this launch date when submitted for moderation was released to users only by March 8 without explaining the reasons for the delays, or was not released at all without explanation, the developer will suffer losses, as will those who sponsored the game's development.
In this or similar cases in Russia, there are opportunities to appeal to the regulator and try to compensate for the losses. On giant platforms from other countries, this is almost impossible.
However, moderation is necessary. This is how large application stores take care of protecting the ecosystem and users. Alternative sources for downloading applications - websites and Telegram channels - do not have it, and become a platform for cybercriminals.
When downloading an application from unclear sources, you cannot be sure that it does not contain malicious code. At the same time, an already installed antivirus on a smartphone may not always work and protect user data.
What applications can be sold in RuStore?
Applications and games for phones and tablets, TVs with RuStore-TV, and for different segments.
The service provides the ability to sell not only the applications and games themselves, but also in-app purchases, as well as subscriptions.
Who can work with RuStore?
Application developers who are self-employed, Russian local companies, and foreign companies.
Large companies use role distribution within the store. For example, someone from the team may be responsible for releasing new versions of the application as a release engineer, someone else - for user reviews, ratings, and comments. Neither of these employees will have access to publishing and unpublishing the application, even if they really want to delete it. This eliminates potential damage to the company due to human error. Other online application markets cannot always offer this.
We have created a role model concentrated within the application. This means that if you publish several applications in your large company, the roles and functions within each application will be distributed among the teams that need it.
All product setup on the platform takes place within the console.
There is no restriction on the application being published only in RuStore and nowhere else.
There is also an opportunity for developers to publish several versions of the product at once for different vendors: Huawei, Samsung, and others. If necessary, you can also get access to statistics on the devices from which the game or application is downloaded most often.
Does a developer on RuStore need a cash register?
When a customer purchases an application, the receipt comes from RuStore, and a self-employed developer does not need to have a cash register. They receive deductions from the purchase almost immediately.
But there is no single threshold from which the deduction begins. Conditionally, somewhere the deductions will be a ruble, somewhere a hundred, and this is a problem for developers when declaring income. RuStore will solve it.
How does RuStore protect the user's personal data in the store?
At the moderation stage in the store, any application and any game is necessarily checked, there is a review stage in Russia as well. Including checking what data on the user's device the product will have access to, and how much such access is needed for its operation.
For example, if a conditional application for reading books or a weather forecast requests the user's phone book, then the moderators will have questions for its developers. And they will most likely be asked to remove access to the user's phone book.
There is also a check for clickbait, for the correctness of information, and for malicious components in moderation. It can be initially built into any application or game.
Are there applications in RuStore for children?
Yes, there are. Each of them also undergoes moderation, plus in this case they also look to ensure that there are no moments outside the RARS age rating in the children's game. Each application or game for minors has a markup according to RARS age ratings.
Also, from September 1 of this year, parents can set up a gradation by age groups for their child in RuStore: preschooler, schoolchild, teenager.
A separate catalog and recommendations for top downloads and potentially interesting content are calculated for each age.
How to pay for a purchase in RuStore?
SBP, Mir bank cards, VK ID cards, SberPay, Tinkoff Pay, and payment from mobile phone accounts are currently working. But the list of payment instruments will be expanded.