Publishing Help
By default, all new games created by designers are private projects and are not available to the public. Designers can use our service to order as many copies of their game as they want, and they are never required to publish a game to the online shop.
However, if you do want to publish your game, then The Game Crafter wants to ensure that games created and ordered through this site are of high quality. As a final quality assurance check, you will be required to order a copy of your game as part of the publishing process. This will allow you to see the finished product before anyone else. You will not be charged full price; as always, you can purchase your own game(s) at cost.
When you're ready to purchase your game, simply click on the "Add to Cart" button in the Edit Game screen.
If there are any required fields or steps that you did not complete during the game editing process, you will be shown system messages alerting you of those items (for example, if you forgot to proof a card face).
If all items are complete, you will be directed to the address screen, where you will be asked to provide a shipping address, and if different, a billing address. You can then select a shipping method and complete your check out.
Shortly after purchasing the first copy of your game, the system will recognize the sale, and you'll then have to wait 10 days before you’re allowed to publish your game. This policy ensures that designers have time to receive and review the physical copy of the game before they hit publish. Reviewing the physical copy for any errors, omissions, or changes that need to be made is important to ensure that your customers will be receiving a high-quality product.
Once you are ready to publish your game, you will now need to set up your shop page and publish your game for sale. Here is a video that walks you through the process of publishing your game.
We've also have written instructions below that include screenshots and details on how to setup each section.
1) To start, click the Sell tab.
2) You will see several warning symbols. These symbols identify items that are required to publish your game.
3) In the first area, Overview, you will find the publish button, an area to edit how you receive your royalties, a link to your shop page (to preview how others will see your page) and your game's statistics.
4) Next up is Vitals. This is for information like how many players your game has, how long it takes to play and the age range for your game. * Note that you cannot use our site to sell or market games to children under 12, due to an Act of Congress that prevents it.
5) Pricing is important, as this is how you set how much money you want to charge for your game. Automatic pricing will automatically apply a $5 of markup to the cost of your game, but you can change the markup amount if you wish. (The benefit of automatic pricing is that it will update if the cost to make your game changes, so that your profit remains the same.) If you don't want to use automatic pricing, you can set this field to "No," and manually type in the price you wish to charge. All prices must end in .99.
Under Price, you will see four sections: MSRP, Cost, TGC, Designer. MSRP is the price other people will pay for your game, and you can edit it to be anything above Cost when automatic pricing is off. Cost is how much you pay for your game. TGC is how much profit TGC is making with your current MSRP, and Designer is how much profit you are making with the current MSRP. Automatic pricing, Desired Markup (if Automatic Pricing is set to "Yes") and MSRP are the only sections you can edit on this page.
6) Marketing is the section that is used to advertise your game. The ad and short description are the information that will displayed when people are searching for games on our site. Cool Factors are displayed on your shop page and should be short statements about why people should buy your game. There is an optional spot to upload a website here as well. Make sure that you enter the full website address (for example, https://www.mygamewebsite.com rather than www.mygamewebsite.com); otherwise, the link will not work for customers.
The ad must be a PNG or JPG sized to 216x150 pixels. You can upload your ad image to the white box towards the bottom. You can find a template for the ad here: https://help.thegamecrafter.com/article/37-shop-images
7) The Safe Search section can be left with its defaults unless your game has any 18+, NSFW-type content. You should change a drop-down box to "Yes" if your game contains any of the listed content. This will ensure your game is filtered to the correct audiences.
8) The Professional Review section is where you can link a professional review from a game reviewer. This review will appear at the top of your shop page. (Reviews are required for functions, such as applying for the Showcase.)
9.1) The Shop Page is a very important section, and is used to create the main content of your shop page. I will break it into sections to make it easier to navigate. At the top is where you will upload your logo and your Shop Backdrop. The shop backdrop is the large image that will be at the top, and the logo is the smaller image that is overlaid on the lower right of the backdrop. The shop backdrop must be 1600 x 600 pixels. Your logo should contain the name of your game and have a transparent background, and must be 350 x 150 pixels. You can find templates for those here: https://help.thegamecrafter.com/article/37-shop-images
9.2) The next section down is for creating your shop description. You can enter text, upload images and videos here by pasting a URL to those images/videos, or use the upload box towards the bottom to upload images to your description.
10) The Shop Preferences allow you to set when someone can purchase your game. The first option allows people to be able to purchase your game before you publish it. When you change the setting to "Yes," no one will be able to find your game by name through the search in our Shop; however, anyone with a direct link to your game's Shop page would be able to purchase the game.
The 2nd option allows you to control whether or not your game's Shop page is visible to other people while it is unpublished. (Again, a direct link to the game's Shop page would be required to view it.)
The 3rd option is for if you decide to publish your game without a box. This will add a warning to your game's Shop page, so people are aware that it will not have a box included. (If you set this option to "No" initially but add a box to your game later, you'll want to make sure you come back and turn this setting back to "Yes," to avoid any confusion for customers.)
11) Taxonomy is how your game will be categorized on our site.
Shop Department is for the general type of product. For example: Games, Game Upgrades, Playing Cards, etc.
Category is for the specific type of the product you selected above. For example, if you select "Games", your options would be Card
Games, Board Games, Dice Games, etc.
Tags are for key words that can help people find your game while they are searching for general terms. Some examples of tags could be Fantasy, Casual Gamer, Animals, War, etc.
12) The Action Shots section is where you can upload images of your games in action. This can be photos, images from your game, or renders. Those images should be 800 x 600 pixels. You can adjust the sequence in which they appear by adjusting the numbers in the Sequence field.
13) In Related Games, you can add games that may be related to this game, like expansions or versions in different languages. You can add them by using the + button.
Once you have completed all of these sections, you can head back to the Overview section and click the "Publish" button. If something is missing, a warning will appear to let you know what is missing,
You will want to begin promoting your game at this point, so others will find it and want to purchase it. Visit the marketing help page to learn more about how to increase your game's visibility and drive sales.
If you have additional questions about publishing your game, please click on the green "Support" button on the bottom right-hand side of the screen on our site.