How to detect if an android app is a game?

Question

In an app I am developing I need to iterate through the installed apps and detect which ones are games. Is there any way to do this?

I was thinking to a Play Store API that can search for package name and returns its category even if it's only limited to apps on the store. Does something similar exist? Would it be possible?

Is there any alternative way to do it?

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 23 '19 at 07:17

9

This answer is deprecated!
Correct and backwards compatible way to do this is here!

Since Android API version 21, there's finally a way to check if an application is a game.

PackageManager pm = mContext.getPackageManager();
ApplicationInfo ai = pm.getApplicationInfo(mPackageName,0);
if((ai.flags & ApplicationInfo.FLAG_IS_GAME) == ApplicationInfo.FLAG_IS_GAME)
    return true;
return false;

edited Jul 23 '19 at 07:17

Roberto Anić Banić

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answered Feb 27 '15 at 09:15

Vektor88

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There is no requirement for a game to have this flag set. – CommonsWare Oct 16 '15 at 22:10
But there are several good reasons for a developer to put this flag into his/her application manifest, one of them is proper indexing in play store and android tv launcher. – Vektor88 Oct 17 '15 at 06:17

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

3

There is no automatical way to detect if an app is a game. You just could compaire the package name of the common part of the package name. My solution was to index the google store pages and hash the package names.

I could optimize my hashes by building common prefixes. I handled the package name as a domain and grep the public suffix. I use the list from http://publicsuffix.org/.

A "public suffix" is one under which Internet users can directly register names. Some examples of public suffixes are .com, .co.uk and pvt.k12.ma.us. The Public Suffix List is a list of all known public suffixes.

The Public Suffix List is an initiative of Mozilla, but is maintained as a community resource. It is available for use in any software, but was originally created to meet the needs of browser manufacturers.

With this list you can detect part of a packagename is a common prefix.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Apr 14 '13 at 10:34

rekire

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it's not mine, if it works I'd be interested in some more directions. – Vektor88 Apr 14 '13 at 10:35
But doing so I am supposed to prior have a list of the most important game companies. wouldn't it be better to get category info from the play store page of the application? – Vektor88 Apr 14 '13 at 11:31
I tried that too but I found no way to get the categorie from an app. I see no way to detect that the package [com.rovio.angrybirds](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirds) is a game. Do you see that? – rekire Apr 14 '13 at 11:41
1

Ahgs you are right I missed that. However there is no official API to get the data. But you could parse the html. – rekire Apr 14 '13 at 11:56
Ok, so I'll do it with the dirty way.. :-) – Vektor88 Apr 14 '13 at 12:04

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 17 '20 at 08:16

For me the above answer didn't work, the ApplicationInfo.FLAG_IS_GAME is now deprecated, with API 28+ (in my case), you can do something like this:

_pm = _context.PackageManager;
List<string> packageList = new List<string>();
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ActionMain);
intent.AddCategory(Intent.CategoryLeanbackLauncher); // or add any category you want
var list = _pm.QueryIntentActivities(intent, PackageInfoFlags.MetaData);
foreach (var app in list)
{
    ApplicationInfo ai = _pm.GetApplicationInfo(app.ActivityInfo.PackageName, 0);
    var allFlags = ai.Flags;

    if (allFlags.HasFlag(ApplicationInfoFlags.IsGame))
    {
        packageList.Add(app.ActivityInfo.PackageName);
    }
}

How to detect if an android app is a game?

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