Game services not working for app if downloaded from play store

Question

I've been trying to get the game services working properly for so long. My problem is that game service isn't working on the version downloaded from the play store, but on the version downloaded directly from android studio the game service works perfectly. Even though both versions use the same key and have the same SHA1 code (the release SHA1 code). I checked if the SHA1 from the play store version of my app matches with the game service's SHA1 by comparing the SHA1 codes from the android-release.apk and from https://console.developers.google.com/apis/credentials/oauthclient. I doubt that the problem lies in the code of my app, because it works perfectly in the version downloaded directly from android studio.

So my question is what I could have possibly done wrong here, and how to fix it.

Thank you for reading

Answer 1

First off, I want to thank everyone who took their time to post an answer. I don't think anyone could have guessed my stupid mistake because it only applies to libGDX users. The problem was that the target sdk in the gradle .build file of BaseGameUtils was not the same as the .build file of the android module. It's amazing how such a small mistake can cost your whole weekend!