When building an app you given an option to set a package identifier, How important is it? Does it need to be unique from any other app on the market? What use does it have?
Hi d.epdahowdy and welcome to the Corona community forums.
Yes, the Package Identifier is critical. You must have it. It must be unique from any other app on the marketplace. It is the primary key in Google’s database to identify your app. If you go to Google Play and search for Angry Birds, you will see the URL is:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirds
The com.rovio.angrybirds is the Package Identifier. And once it’s installed, it’s how Android keeps track of which apps are unique. Apps can, unfortunately, use the same icon and have the same visible name. For instance you can have multiple apps named “Hello World” on your device as long as the package ID is different for each one of them: com.somedomain.helloworld1, com.somedomin.helloworld2, etc. But you can only have one com.somedomain.helloworld1 app installed at a time.
As for what you should use… The standard is to use the reverse domain name for your business. There is an assumption that you have a website, for instance, I have a website: https://omnigeekmedia.com, so I would use the reverse of that + the game name to create a unique name: com.omnigeekmedia.omniblaster is the Package Identifier of one of my games.
If you don’t have a domain name, I’ve seen people use com.gmail.youremailname.gamename since youremailname@gmail.com should be unique to you and you can tack on the gamename since you likely will end up with multiple published apps.
Rob
Yeah it is important and you should read more about it on for example google play console, where you setup your app for release on play store.
When you try to build it in Corona you see a good example below the input field.
Your’s could for example be “com.depdahowdy.myapp”
Its unique across your apps in a given store and i’m assuming unique in each store entirely, based on construct syntax.
Welcome to Corona! 
Just as an FYI, I looked up depdahowdy.com and it’s available to be registered:
GoDaddy has a deal right now for $0.99 for the first year but it goes up to $17.99 next year to reserve the name. I’ve been moving all my domains to Google Domains since they are $12 a year and includes free privacy (GoDaddy charges more to keep your information: email, phone number, etc. private).
You don’t need a website, but if you don’t reserve and keep the domain name, someone else could come along and grab the name and start developing apps hoping to use com.depdahowdy as part of their package name. If course if you use the name first in Google Play, it would be yours and that person couldn’t use the same package name. This is probably getting a bit confusing, so let me illustrate with examples.
You use:
com.depdahowdy.myawesomegame
before anyone else does, it’s yours. But someone could come along and use:
com.depdahowdy.mybettergame
and they could use that name. None of this depends on anyone actually owning the domain depdahowdy.com. You wouldn’t be able to use “mybettergame” because the other person got the name first.
But this is where owning the domain name comes into play. You can see where someone would be really confused about who is the developer on myawesomegame and who the developer for mybettergame is. They both appear to come from some company named depdahowdy.com so you might get stuck having to answer support questions for the other developer.
While owing the domain doesn’t prevent someone from building packages with your reverse domain name as part of it, most people will want to have a website to market their game and if they see someone already has depdahowdy.com they will most likely seek a different name.
I use namecheap.com for my domain. Cost is atm at usd 8.88 I noticed, and protection is included free as well. Don’t recall if it cost a little more next year or not but the service is good and support real people, so I’m good.
Oh they also have very cheap hosting. 2.8 usd or so. Tried it with wordpress and it worked fine, but in the end I moved my site to github for free hosting and free SSL protection. Doesn’t support dynamic content though but for a static product page it’s great
Hi d.epdahowdy and welcome to the Corona community forums.
Yes, the Package Identifier is critical. You must have it. It must be unique from any other app on the marketplace. It is the primary key in Google’s database to identify your app. If you go to Google Play and search for Angry Birds, you will see the URL is:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirds
The com.rovio.angrybirds is the Package Identifier. And once it’s installed, it’s how Android keeps track of which apps are unique. Apps can, unfortunately, use the same icon and have the same visible name. For instance you can have multiple apps named “Hello World” on your device as long as the package ID is different for each one of them: com.somedomain.helloworld1, com.somedomin.helloworld2, etc. But you can only have one com.somedomain.helloworld1 app installed at a time.
As for what you should use… The standard is to use the reverse domain name for your business. There is an assumption that you have a website, for instance, I have a website: https://omnigeekmedia.com, so I would use the reverse of that + the game name to create a unique name: com.omnigeekmedia.omniblaster is the Package Identifier of one of my games.
If you don’t have a domain name, I’ve seen people use com.gmail.youremailname.gamename since youremailname@gmail.com should be unique to you and you can tack on the gamename since you likely will end up with multiple published apps.
Rob
Yeah it is important and you should read more about it on for example google play console, where you setup your app for release on play store.
When you try to build it in Corona you see a good example below the input field.
Your’s could for example be “com.depdahowdy.myapp”
Its unique across your apps in a given store and i’m assuming unique in each store entirely, based on construct syntax.
Welcome to Corona!
Just as an FYI, I looked up depdahowdy.com and it’s available to be registered:
GoDaddy has a deal right now for $0.99 for the first year but it goes up to $17.99 next year to reserve the name. I’ve been moving all my domains to Google Domains since they are $12 a year and includes free privacy (GoDaddy charges more to keep your information: email, phone number, etc. private).
You don’t need a website, but if you don’t reserve and keep the domain name, someone else could come along and grab the name and start developing apps hoping to use com.depdahowdy as part of their package name. If course if you use the name first in Google Play, it would be yours and that person couldn’t use the same package name. This is probably getting a bit confusing, so let me illustrate with examples.
You use:
com.depdahowdy.myawesomegame
before anyone else does, it’s yours. But someone could come along and use:
com.depdahowdy.mybettergame
and they could use that name. None of this depends on anyone actually owning the domain depdahowdy.com. You wouldn’t be able to use “mybettergame” because the other person got the name first.
But this is where owning the domain name comes into play. You can see where someone would be really confused about who is the developer on myawesomegame and who the developer for mybettergame is. They both appear to come from some company named depdahowdy.com so you might get stuck having to answer support questions for the other developer.
While owing the domain doesn’t prevent someone from building packages with your reverse domain name as part of it, most people will want to have a website to market their game and if they see someone already has depdahowdy.com they will most likely seek a different name.
I use namecheap.com for my domain. Cost is atm at usd 8.88 I noticed, and protection is included free as well. Don’t recall if it cost a little more next year or not but the service is good and support real people, so I’m good.
Oh they also have very cheap hosting. 2.8 usd or so. Tried it with wordpress and it worked fine, but in the end I moved my site to github for free hosting and free SSL protection. Doesn’t support dynamic content though but for a static product page it’s great