Just a heads up for anyone who purchased a lot of the old humble android bundles....

I've recently got a new phone and been installing a lot of the games from old android bundles etc but most of them don't work on newer versions of android. About a third of my purchases are not working properly & almost all of them are well out of date compared to their play store equivalents.

Their stance is:
` I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues with Android bundles purchased through our store. Sadly, we will not be able to receive any updates for these APKs at this time. Many Android porting teams for older APKs may no longer be operational to help port a new build, even if a more recent build is available via Google Play directly through the developer. We cannot make any guarantees, but the developer or publisher may still update this build in the future at their discretion.`
&
'Whether or not we are able to update builds may vary from game to game, so unfortunately we cannot provide a concrete answer as to what games, if any, may ever be updated.'

In other words they will make zero effort to pursue updates etc & are happy to just abandon it.
I wouldn't bother with purchasing any android versions on humble or any games for their android versions but I thought anyone that may not be aware might like to know, especially if going for a new phone or updating to the latest android builds.

Humble Bundle has a terrible customer service.
I have contacted them once about an issue, but they never got back to me.

Anyway, does this make any sense at all:
"Many Android porting teams for older APKs may no longer be operational to help port a new build, even if a more recent build is available via Google Play directly through the developer."

What are those mysterious "porting teams", and if they do not make versions for Google Play, then who does?

I don't use stock Android. I load up Lineage OS and all of the old Android games work on the latest version of Lineage OS.

I still play Neon Shadow in local DM mode with my wife and sometimes when my grandkids are over.

Maybe they need a compatibility app (like wine) or something to let you use apps as though it were older versions of android...

That would probably go VERY well on iphones where each update breaks almost everything...

They could probably have all the Play Store and Google stuff stripped out of the apps to make them independent , and are thus seen as unrelated to the versions available on said store, so that they can't be updated further than their current version. Maybe...

This is an issue with Android in general. And Apple's own iOS for that matter. That is why some games get pulled from the store left and right, due to devs abandoning them and new updates breaking those games. I know it's not a good excuse for Humble in this case, but it happens directly on the stores too.

This is why I rarely if ever buy anything directly on the app stores. Even big name publishers will drop support for their older titles.

Plus I don't think Humble does android bundles anymore. I have not seen one in a few years.

Possible, but what store-related things are there in Android games?
The only two things I can think of are in-game paid ads, and some paid features in the game (extra gear, etc.).

I can see why developers and Google would prefer to keep those in the game, but from player's perspective, is there anything at all that the store offers that couldn't be in the downloadable APK?

This is humble in a nutshell though. It’s run as cheap as possible, hence things don’t get updated, even the drm free builds are generally abandoned. Same with most bundle sites, it’s only good at purchase then it’s gone. You get what you pay for in this life, and people don’t want to pay anything….

I meant anything tying a particular game or app to a store being removed or changed, such as internal app ID or any other method used to allow the offering of updates to said game or app, which would then render it stuck at the particular version that was originally purchased from Humble, for example. So essentially you are at the mercy of Humble to maintain that game or app, as it is essentially seen as completely different to the same game or app (by the same developer) offered anywhere else...

I have the Humble Store version of Mini Metro on Android, and it asks you to connect it to your Google Play sign-in if you want to access the global leaderboards. (I don't, so I haven't investigated further.)

If you don't want to root your old device to put a custom OS that lets you run older apps, one thing you could do is install a virtual machine in your phone, e.g. VMOS.

It really is too bad. Would be neat with a more curated game store for Android (especially to cater to those of us who game with a controller attached). Surprisingly few ports of decent games on Google Play.

Some required google games or whatever google's game account tracker thingy is called. I remember having a big arguement with them ages ago regarding a couple of games that required a google games account & so weren't drm free (they ended up providing dummy account files.) Not very easy to do because I have almost every humble android bundle (allegedly 342 games but I suspect closer to 100) & I've only tested a few games but the ones off the top of my head that didn't run correctly appeared to be every single one I attempted to install:

Autumn Dynasty, Avernum, Breach & Clear, death road to Canada, Frozen Synapse Prime, Greed Corp, Grim Fandango Remastered, Guild of Dungeoneering, Puzzle Quest 2,Sanitarium, worms 4, Syberia, The Banner Saga, Ys Chronicles 1

I feel your pain serpantino. Thanks for the list. Try to contact the developers (the emails are on the playstore) and expose your case (purchase receipts, etc), propose them to give you promo codes to claim the game in the playstore.
Because the other alternative, HB being responsible and getting updated versions... is a dream... that always happens with alternative vendors (Amazon for example) and they simply don't care once they grab the cash.