Knowing which route to take and which platform to use to
distribute your game to the world can be challenging. Maybe you’ve done
it before, maybe you haven’t – but the aim of this article is to try and offer
a little bit of help in laying out what the main options are and could be for
you.
I’m no game
developer and so I can’t offer you much help with the ins and outs of it all
but I am a game music composer with great enthusiasm
and respect for indie game developers. I have worked with many and I have some
understanding of the many challenges that you face. I definitely can’t solve
them all, but my hope is that in sharing what I’ve learnt and discovered on
this topic, it may help to alleviate some of your pain and thus enable you to
focus on the areas which give you the most enjoyment and satisfaction through
the game development journey and process.
Here are 11 places
you may want to be aware of and explore further as options for publishing your
game:
1. Steam
Steam offers the largest and most well
established PC distribution service around. They’re the ‘ultimate
entertainment platform’ with over 100 million people in their community. If you
want your game to be in the big leagues, this is where it needs to be.
You will need to
publish your game through Steam Direct and by joining their
Steamworks Distribution program. There is a submission fee of $100 per product,
which is recoupable after your product/game has made $1000 from the steam
store. Here is the Steamworks Documentation that you’ll need
to read and go through in order to complete the process.
2. Itch.io
Itch is
an excellent platform for indie game developers. It’s free to publish your
games here and as the seller you have quite a lot of control over what happens.
You have complete control over your product page, what price you set for the
game and you can adjust the revenue split that you share with Itch.io from 10
to 30% or even 0% if you wish.
Most games are
priced between $10-15. Buyers can ‘pay what they want’ and you can also set a
minimum price for your game. To get started you’ll need to create an account and then a custom landing page to
showcase your game.
3. Game Jolt
It’s easy to get
your game up on Game Jolt and it’s free to do. Just
create an account, add your game, set your price and off you go! The revenue
split is up to you as long as you give 10% or less to Game Jolt. 30% of ad
revenues generated from your game page also go to you. The money you make initially
goes into a Game Jolt Wallet. If you decide to support and buy other games from
your Wallet, you won’t get charged any processing fees.
Check out the Game Jolt marketplace here.
4. Gog
Gog.com is a well-established digital
distribution platform for video games and films. It originally launched in 2008
as Good Old Games and is known for it’s DRM-free video games and films.
There is no
submission fee for games and for those that get accepted, Gog.com provides a
extensive promotion and marketing, including a prominent feature on their
website. However, it is not always easy to get your game accepted. Rejections
are common as Gog only accept a few games each month. This is where you
can submit your game.
The revenue split
is 70/30 but there is an option for an advance on your royalties which can help
fund the completion of your game. This could be really useful for you and if
you opt for this your revenue split shifts to 60/40.
5. Humble Bundle
Humble Bundle claims to have 12 million
customers and as such, is a decent platform to release your game on. It’s free
to submit games and once you’ve done so, the Humble Bundle team will review it
and let you know whether it’s been accepted or rejected. This is the Humble Bundle publishing page.
The revenue split
is fairly generous at 75/15 then the remaining 10% goes to charity. If
you publish your game this way, you are effectively releasing your game through
the Humble Store.
Having said this,
Humble offer other options: see their Humble Bundle Development Resources:
· Humble
Gamepage - enables you to create your own webpage to sell your game through.
Here hosting is free and you get 95% of the revenues after tax and processing
fees.
· Humble Widget – has the same 95% revenue
split and enables you to sell your game through your own site directly.
6. Kongregate
Kongregate is a solid video game
publishing platform which boasts having over 100k web games uploaded, 15
million active players and 100 million game downloads.
They offer
opportunities for indie developers wanting to publish PC and mobile games and
go into more detail about this on their Kongregate Developers site and via their platform documentation.
If your game
performs well on other platforms then it could certainly do well on Kongregate.
The platform relies heavily on ratings and every month, the highest rated games
receive a cash prize of between $250-1750. Popular games and those with
high ratings also get a greater chance of being featured.
Ad revenue ranges
from 25-50% depending on exclusivity of the game, and you’ll get 70% of the
gross revenues from in-app purchases. Make sure you look at their game submission
checklist to increase your chances of getting your game
accepted.
7. Gamers Gate
Gamers Gate claims to be the leading
digital distribution platform for PC and MAC games, with over 6000 games in
their catalogue, available for download. There’s no submission fee and
the revenue split is 70/30. However your game needs to be installable and
playable in order to be published here i.e. web-based games are not supported.
To submit your
game to Gamers Gate, email them with the relevant information. See their FAQs for more information on what
to include in your submission.
8. Game House
Game House is a distributor of casual
games for PC, Mac and mobile devices. Their online portal offers over 2300
online and downloadable games some of which were created in-house and others by
third parties.
Game House Partners offers PC and mobile
app publishing and promotion for video games. They say they have 30 million
monthly users and 13 million PC and Mac gamers. To submit your game, drop them
a message through their online form and someone from their team will contact
you to explore things further.
9. Google Play
This should be a
fairly obvious one, but if you’re creating a mobile game, you’ll need to start
looking at the Google Play App Store.
There’s a one-time
fee of $25 to open a publisher
account and then you can start the submission process.
Take a look at
their Developer Launch
Checklist to make sure that your game complies with their
various guidelines.
Note that the
revenue split is 70/30 and that if you decide to make your game free, this will
be set once it has been published i.e. there’s no changing it to paid once
you’ve gone past the publishing it stage.
10. Apple Store
If you want your
mobile game to be in the The App Store you
will need to enrol in the Apple Developer
Program, which costs $99 per year. For this fee you will be able to
distribute your apps through iOS and Mac OS.
You will need to
follow their various guidelines to submit your game to
the Apple team for review. The revenue split is 70/30 or 85/15 after the first
year, if you have a subscription app.
11. Amazon Appstore
If you’re creating
a mobile game for Android, you may want to release it onto the Amazon Appstore. It is free to submit your
game and to release it onto the Amazon Appstore but first you will need to
create an Amazon Developer
Account.
Your game will
then be tested through Amazon’s own app testing service and then if it meets
all the necessary requirements you can submit it to the appstore for review.
The revenue split
is 70/30 and the Live App Testing tool can be very helpful when alpha and beta
testing your game. See this Developers Guide to
get started.
I hope that you've
found this article helpful. For more useful advice, ideas and tips on game
development, game music and more, please take a minute to browse my blog further!
And of course, if
you need support with your game music or
want to check out my albums,
please do!
via ninicgmusicbyninichi
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