You finished a game. Now you have to get it in front of people, and for most PC games that means Steam and the Epic Games Store. Both let you publish yourself, and neither process is secret, but both have steps that trip people up the first time. Here is the honest version of what it takes on each, what it costs, and where we can take the whole thing off your plate.
//Before either store: get your paperwork in order
Both stores pay you real money, so both need to know who you are and where the money goes. Sort this out first, because it is the part that causes the longest delays.
- A business entity helps. You can publish as an individual, but a registered company makes taxes and payouts cleaner, especially if you are outside the United States.
- Tax forms. You will fill out a tax form (a W-9 if you are in the US, a W-8 if you are not). Get your tax identification details ready.
- A bank account that can receive payouts in a supported currency.
- Age ratings. Most storefronts use the IARC questionnaire, a free form you fill out about your game's content that spits out ratings for each region. Have an honest description of your content ready.
None of this is hard. It is just slow if you start it the week you want to launch. Start it early.
//Publishing on Steam
Steam is the biggest PC store, and the process runs through a system called Steamworks.
Sign up for Steamworks and pay the Steam Direct fee. Steam charges a one time fee of 100 US dollars per game to publish. It is called the Steam Direct fee. The good news is it is recoupable: once your game earns 1,000 dollars in sales, that 100 comes back. Think of it as a deposit that filters out people who are not serious.
Verify your identity and tax details. Steam will hold you in a verification period, usually around 30 days from when you pay, before you can release. This is on purpose. Do not pay the fee the day before you want to launch.
Build your store page. This is your shop window: capsule art, screenshots, a trailer, a description, tags, and your system requirements. Steam requires your store page to be live for at least 30 days before you can launch, so it can build a wishlist audience. Wishlists matter a lot on Steam, so the earlier this page goes up, the better.
Upload your build. Steam uses a tool called SteamPipe to upload your game files into depots, which are the chunks the store delivers to players. You set up your app, your depots, and your launch options, then upload. Expect to spend real time here the first time.
Pass review and set your price. Steam reviews your build and your store page before launch. Set your price, set up any regional pricing, and pick your release date. Then you launch.
The cut: Steam takes 30 percent of revenue. That drops to 25 percent after your game passes 10 million dollars in sales, and 20 percent after 50 million. For almost everyone, plan around the 30 percent number.
//Publishing on the Epic Games Store
Epic opened self publishing to everyone, so you no longer need an invite to put a game on the Epic Games Store.
Register as a developer. Create an account, agree to the distribution terms, and set up the same tax and payout details as above.
No listing fee. Unlike Steam, Epic does not charge a fee to put your game up. That lowers the barrier to getting listed.
Set up your product and store page. Same idea as Steam: art, screenshots, trailer, description, system requirements. Epic has its own art size requirements, so you will export your key art again at their dimensions.
Get your age rating. Epic uses the IARC questionnaire too, so if you already did it for Steam the answers carry over.
Upload your build. Epic uses its own publishing tools to upload and patch builds. The flow is different from Steam's but the concept is the same: upload your files, set launch options, test, and submit for review.
The cut: Epic takes 12 percent of revenue and leaves you the other 88. That is a meaningfully smaller cut than Steam, which is the main reason a lot of studios list on both.
//A few things people get wrong
- They start too late. The verification windows and the 30 day store page rule on Steam mean you cannot decide to launch next week. Give yourself a couple of months of runway.
- They treat the store page as an afterthought. Your capsule art and trailer do most of your selling. A great game with a weak page gets ignored.
- They ignore wishlists. On Steam especially, wishlists drive your launch day visibility. Get the page up early and point everyone at it.
- They forget the cut exists. Price and plan your budget around keeping 70 percent on Steam and 88 percent on Epic, not 100.
//Or publish through us
All of the above is doable on your own, and if you want to learn it, do it. But it is a real amount of work that has nothing to do with making your game better, and the first time through there are a lot of small ways to lose time or money.
That is where Galactrex Studios comes in. We can publish your game for you on Steam, on the Epic Games Store, or both. That means we handle the accounts, the fees, the store pages, the art at the right sizes, the ratings, the build uploads, the review back and forth, and the launch. You keep making the game. We get it on the shelf and keep it running.
If that sounds better than learning two storefronts from scratch the month before launch, talk to us. Bring your game and tell us where you want it to live, and we will get it there.