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When I try to install some Android games, the Google Play site says they are not compatible with my phone, without stating the specific reasons. How can I find out what about my phone is incompatible?

fredley
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DUKE
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    It could be any number of reasons, probably your phone is running a version of Android that is incompatible with the game (too old or too new), or your phone does not have certain hardware that is necessary for playing the game. – fredley Nov 22 '12 at 14:43
  • I have checked my Android version (2.3 Gingerbread), that is OK with the mentioned games. The problem is how to find out the actual reasons? Say, I am going to get another phone, how to make sure these games will run or not? – DUKE Nov 22 '12 at 15:39
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    Whatever game you're looking at should have requirements listed on the app page. – Frank Nov 22 '12 at 15:40
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    If you feel lucky, you can try forcing the apps to install. – fredley Nov 22 '12 at 15:57
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    @fredley Seems a useful link. – DUKE Nov 22 '12 at 16:27
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    For what it's worth, when I had an HTC Wildfire (original one), that had a very low resolution, that was typically the reason for incompatibility. – George Duckett Nov 22 '12 at 16:30

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I'm an android developer for work and all I can tell you is that we have to deal with very different devices running the same android version. Dealing with a cheap device, with poor graphic support, not enough memory and low res, to publish a 3D game (example) is very annoying.

We have to deal with so many things already, that we set a base limit. If our game is designed to be at least 800x600, any device with less than that resolution won't be able to play the game. It's just easier than trying the impossible.

Try this example: why should a game that uses gps be installed on a device without gps? You may say this is an extreme example, but for us developers the same applies to lower-level limits (coding/design related)

See this link to understand how we limit things and what you can do to filter apps in the playstore

Samuele Mattiuzzo
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    As much as I like this answer, you haven't addressed the base question at all, which is how to find out if you can play the game or not. – Frank Jan 11 '13 at 17:08
  • As i stated in the end, you can filter them out on the play store or buy a compatible phone. It's almost impossible to fix any compatibility issue. "if you can play it" --> you already know it when you enter the play store... "why" --> you can't know, actually (ask the dev maybe? but they probably can't help... there's so much different hardware around, we need to put restrictions... on the ios side it's easier, 3 ipad versions and 2 different resolutions...) – Samuele Mattiuzzo Jan 11 '13 at 18:42
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    @Samuele Mattiuzzo Why can't the Google play store state something (with reasons) like "You can't install this game because your phone does not support GPS"? – DUKE Jan 12 '13 at 17:33
  • @DUKE I don't know exactly. Maybe because it would be impossible anyway for you to fix that (you can't change the video card) so it's pointless – Samuele Mattiuzzo Jan 13 '13 at 04:42
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    It's true that you can't change your phone's video card, or give it a GPS when it doesn't have one, but if you knew what about your device makes it incompatible with a particular app, you could use that information to inform your decision on what device to buy next time. If I knew that the issue was needing Android version XYZ, I might just wait for an OTA update. If I knew I needed a minimum resolution display, I'd compare those specs the next time I shop. If I knew I just needed >= 2GB RAM, I'd know I could be fine with just a midrange upgrade rather than needing an S7 – Dan Henderson Aug 28 '16 at 20:23
  • Yeah, correct. The real problem here is how free-form the app stores are, there's no real way of filtering based on what your device is (eg: could by default hide all the incompatible apps, same way as they hide those not available on your region). It's all dealt in a "we chuck them apps in a bin, you just pick one" kind of way, which is all but ideal. Far from it... – Samuele Mattiuzzo Sep 05 '16 at 15:14
  • @SamueleMattiuzzo That and the fact that the store simply doesn't filter right, when it's certain hardware issues. I have an old ASUS TF101 that I wanted to play some games on, for a larger screen. 2 of them could not be installed because the store blocked me. 1 Worked. The other 5 installed, but could not be run due to processor architecture issues (One of the apps simply wouldn't run, and the other 4 popped up with the architecture error, upon launch.) – Khale_Kitha Dec 06 '16 at 19:37
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It may be for 2 reasons :

  1. Hardware Incompatibility

  2. Outdated Software

If your Software is outdated, then a pop-up will tell you that you are running too old an version for the app when you click 'Download'. Now, you may or may not be able to download a newer version of android.

Otherwise, it must be Hardware Incompatibility, and you can't do anything about it (short of buying a new phone).

Siddhartha
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