Then say I wanted to start a Kickstarter. That part is easy enough…but then there is the actual selling of the game. How would I even start going about doing this? I tried looking at websites like payloadz and fetchapp, is that what I’m looking for? does anyone have experience with these? I wish there was a program that would handle the payment and downloading of the game, lol. If these options are what I"m looking for, are they relatively secure? from both a download perspective and a payment / PayPal perspective? these questions don’t really have to be answered, I just want to know where to begin. ( I do realize these must be very n00b questions)
As for desktop games, platforms like Steam, Desura, gog.com, direct2drive, etc. fulfill the role of a digital storefront in the industry. They take care of administering the transaction process as well as letting the player download the game, they guarantee it to be secure (for the most part), but they take a revenue cut out of you in exchange.
For mobile, each OS has their own. Apple has their iTunes store, and Android has Google Play and the Amazon Store.
Other guys, just correct me if I’m wrong!
EDIT: This doesn’t mean you can’t set it up yourself. Mojang made their own digital store for Minecraft and it worked out well enough for them in the end.
Why would you want to begin a Kickstarter once your game is already done?
Yeah, the path to market / distribution options depends on what you’re trying to distribute on. For the most part the platform providers (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, etc.) are the ones you need to sell things through, but on PC you do have several options (or can roll your own if you really want to).
If we are talking PC (iPhone / Android have their own existing marketplaces, so that part is fairly easy apart from marketing) then there are the options of trying to get onto steam or other 3rd platforms or using your own. If you do go down the path of selling it yourself off a website then this guide here is a useful start and steps through a fairly decent process of making an account on Plimus. You could also send an email to the union thing here and see what your options are through them as they will sell your game on your behalf for a 20% cut (which is fairly reasonable for the game industry if you don’t self publish, some contracts can be way way worse).
Yes, this “hypothetical game” is for PC. I would really like Steam and Desura, but those have strict “gatekeeping” and usually require heavy steam integration, so I would prefer to ‘just sell my game’. (but the security and payment of these options is really a plus)
has anyone tried options like Google Play through the web? is that only run through Android marketplace it seems?
Fancy rewards system, and it’s “popular up in the hizzy”
well really, I guess trying to profit off a game through Kickstart might be considered cheating…so scratch that! It was worth a shot though! So…say my game was just getting started then.
Desura at the least, do not require your game to have the social features integration (leaderboards, etc.), but it allows it, should you choose to do so. At least, that’s how I understood my conversation with their support personnel.
Either way, you would need to have your own web server for that to function, since Desura leaderboards etc. come as web services. Again, that’s how I understood my conversation with them, so take it with a grain of salt.
But your game would go through an approval process as always when you submit it to them.
