While it’s all well and good Gameloft getting into the Christmas spirit and dishing out digital goodies via a Twitter Advent Calendar, the company has come under criticism recently for billing errors on its Android store.

Unlike its raft of iOS titles, which are all available on Apple’s App Store, Gameloft elects to bypass Google’s official Market for its high-end 3D Android releases in favour of its own distribution channel on the web.

Billing woes

Unfortunately for the French publishing giant, an ‘error in its billing process that affected 0.05% of all transactions on its stores in December’ resulted in customers being charged twice or more for a single title.

After a popular Android portal drew attention to the payments issue, Gameloft quickly issued an apology to the community and confirmed that the bug had been fixed.

In a statement from Gameloft’s customer service division, the company promised to refund customers affected by the extra charges automatically and ‘reward’ them with a free game credit.

Strong resistance

For many Android customers, though, Gameloft’s continued reluctance to embrace the Android Market comes at a cost.

With complaints in the past ranging from an inability to re-download games, an absence of update notifications, and installation tribulations, Gameloft may have to rethink its distribution strategy post-Xmas.

[source: Android and Me & MobileGamesBlog]