Your game is done and now it’s time to make some money (hopefully). Instead of walking you through every possible combination of release scenarios, I am just going to outline some of the key release avenues that most indies utilize:

Self-Publish
If you’ve successfully been marketing your game throughout the development period, Self-Publishing and releasing your game on your website is a no-brainer. The advantage of selling downloads through your website is that you, the developer, collect the majority of each sale and have control over the website itself so that you can adequately support, feature, and sell your product. The disadvantage is that most indies have measly traffic and will not be able to reach their customers as effectively.

Portals
Before you release your game on your own site, it’s probably a good idea to contact some portals and see if they would be interested in selling your game. What’s a game portal? Well, it’s a site that collects a bunch of games and sells them through a unified website. Some prime examples of portals are: Valve’s Steam, Big Fish Games, Impulse, Reflexive/Amazon, Real Arcade and Direct2Drive. Every portal is different with different audiences and some even act as publishers. There are exclusive and non-exclusive deals and tons of other particulars that I won’t get into. Generally, getting on portals is a good thing since your game will be in front of new eyes. However, since a developer has less and less control over their game’s price on a portal, it is usually best to sell your game at a premium on your own site initially and then boosting your game’s sales by releasing on several portals over the next year. Some deals may be too good to turn down though.

Publisher
If you want to go Retail, you’ll almost definitely need a publisher. Publishers can also help get your game on a whole bunch of other distribution channels and portals. Publishers certainly help give a game the backing power of a larger company but it comes at a price. Publishers are often going to take a cut of sales. That’s the cost of using them and harnessing their marketing power. There are some horror stories out there of publishers who don’t pay royalties or don’t support your game at all. Generally, it’s good to request a marketing action plan and an upfront payment to make sure they mean business.

During the final stages of your game’s development, you should start putting together a release schedule, contact portals, distributors, and publishers and plan out your game’s release. Remember to use press releases and solicit reviews. Send a press release announcing your game’s release date about a month out and then send out review copies. Send out another press release announcing your game’s release on your website (or portal) and be sure to keep sending out releases when your game is available on new websites or distribution channels. Scream about your game’s release from a mountain top and be consistent and persistent. Dedication will result in press coverage which will help get your website visitors and your game demo downloaded.

Keep in mind that it’s a task in and of itself to get people to visit your website and actually download, install and play your game demo. Don’t get frustrated when you don’t sell thousands of units on Day 1. Remember that your game is not the next Halo and people haven’t been talking about it for months on end. Work to create excitement prior to release. Use player and reviewer quotes, put gameplay footage up on YouTube, and try to create excitement and inform people about your big indie game release.

More importantly, keep it up after the release. In the final lesson of this guide, we’ll touch on how important it is to continually market your game and push sales.

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