Publishing tutorial

Favfly

So, I've finally finished my first Gideros game. Yay! Now, I want to publish it... is there a step-by-step tutorial (or anything like that) to guide me through the process?
I'm currently stumped... and knackered. It's been a long dev.

Any help very gratefully received.

pie

Maybe there's something in the forum, but in the end you will have to follow directives from the platform/shop where you want to publish it:
ie. html5 is pretty straight forward: just upload the files somewhere on the www.
Google play requires a one time payment, then from the google play developer console you can upload your apk on google play.
iTunes should be similar but I never used that.
There is plenty of guides to follow out there: google and if you are stuck somewhere just ask

talis

@favfly if you will record your process step by step it would be a great tutorial for all of us, of course here time is the key element, if you have it :-B

totebo

Congratulations on finishing a game! Now it's the easy part left. What platforms are you thinking of publishing to?

Favfly

Thanks @pie.

@talis To be fair, I think my first time publishing on my own will be a less than optimal experience, so I might hold off on a tutorial until I'm more familiar with the process.

@totebo Thanks. Android is my first target, then maybe iOS. Not sure about bothering with HTML or anything else with this game. I'm planning on using adverts to monetise and, as far as I know, Android is probably the best place for this... unless other people know different. In which case, I'm all ears.

PaulH

Congrats on finishing your game!

Don't be intimidated by the publishing process. There are a number of steps, but they're mostly straightforward.

As Pie wrote, you'll want to start by creating your Google Play developer account. From the Developer Console tap "+ Create application", and it will prompt you for the name, description, screen shots, category, etc. There's a lot to wade through, and some is optional, like your privacy policy URL, web site, a link to a demo/promo video on YouTube, etc. You can go through it once with only the required parts at first, then go back and add the optional stuff when you have it, to help market your game.

I'd suggest you don't actually publish it to the store until you have your marketing materials (video, etc.) done, though. How well your app does in its first few days can make a big difference in where it shows up in the store listings, so if you're planning any marketing effort at all, be ready to kick that off before you publish it.

The publishing process is similar on iOS, but with more hoops to jump through and a bit higher cost. Also, Apple charges USD 99 per year for their developer program (vs a one-time fee of USD 25 for Google Play), and Apple reviews every app before it appears on iTunes. Once you submit an app it usually takes a few days of "waiting for review" before you get a result.

It's common to have an app rejected for something subtle, especially with your first submission. For example, don't have a "Quit" button to close your app. The iOS user interface guidelines advise against that, and Apple will likely reject an app with a quit button. They want users to always use the home button to leave an app, and they feel users might think the app crashed if it went away for any other reason, evidently even if they tapped a "quit" button. The lesson here is that you should read their user interface "guidelines", because they're actually closer to commandments than guidelines.

As far as I know, you still need a Mac to run Xcode to build and upload your app package for iOS. If you don't have a Mac, the cheapest route would be to buy a used Mac Mini, but if you go that route, make sure you have enough RAM. Xcode seems to hog more resources lately than it did a few years ago, and dropping some extra memory into my Mini helped dramatically.

Publishing first on Android makes sense since it's faster, cheaper and a bit easier. As for monetizing, I find that while I get more downloads on Android, I tend to earn a bit more from iOS users. I'm monetizing through in-app purchases though, and iOS users are known to be more likely to pay for things than Android users. You may find that ad revenue is in fact better on the Android side.

Once you have your app on Google Play, and you see how it's earning, take a look at Amazon Underground. If your game is something people will tend to spend a fair amount of time on, the revenue there can be reasonable. You give people all the features for free, but get paid USD 0.002 per minute people play. If that's more than you earn on average from Google Play users, putting your app on A.U. is an easy decision. If not, it might still be a good move, but it's not as simple a decision. In my case A.U. makes up a pretty small share of my income, but it took very little effort to get a couple of my apps on there.

Good luck publishing your game!

Paul

Favfly

@PaulH Thanks! That's some great advice to get me rolling.