Update: We are no longer offering the ability to purchase a license to sell PC games starting December 1, 2021. On March 1, 2022, we are sunsetting store channel functionality. You can read more at this article.
Our mission will always be to bring people together around games, so we thought it’d be a good idea to empower game developers of all shapes & sizes to develop, promote, & sell their game entirely through a Discord server! With our new Sell Your Game on Discord feature enabling game developers to be that much closer to their fans will lead to a much closer relationship between player & developer. Our hope is this results in thriving communities who want to contribute to making what we’re all after; a great game.
Quest Accepted
Seeing game development can be a long journey filled with excitement & unexpected roadblocks - it's dangerous to go alone, take this:
Here you’ll find all of our documentation around pretty much everything surrounding cool stuff on Discord. For Game Development specifically here is where you’ll learn about integrating game SDK, adding Rich Presence for your game, & using the dispatch tool to push out a game builds.
So, where does it all start? This journey begins by going to the Developer Portal - still dangerous, here you go:
The flow of your game sitting on a hard drive to being purchasable on a Discord server essentially breaks down into three stages; On-boarding, Beta Development, & Commerce Approval.
On-Boarding
This is your “getting set up stage”. Here you’ll create & manage the team, create a brand new application being your game, make the payment of $25 USD for the Developer Fee, and most importantly; gain access to all of our Developer Portal tools to help; create store pages, manage pricing, uploading game builds, & so on.
Beta Development
Once you create an API application you’ll have access to what’s considered your main hub for managing everything. You’ll then have the option to purchase a Developer Application License for your application. This license gets you access to Dispatch, Discord GameSDK, a native SDK choc full of useful features like lobbies, networking, Rich Presence, and an interface to Discord’s social graph.
When ready, head into Server Commerce Settings > Checklist you'll be able to connect a server to this application. Note you must be a server admin to make this connection between application & server. Once a server has been selected you won't be able to change the server, make sure to select the correct one!
A big checklist will then unlock!
At this point, your server hasn’t yet received our approval to sell games on the Discord platform. You’ll be able to distribute your game to testers; however, you aren’t yet approved to sell this game. Consider this the early stages of getting your game & server ready for sale or to actively beta test your game with a group of testers.
Commerce Approval
Once ready for sale, you’ll have the ability to submit your game to the Discord approval queue. There is an approval process in place where we determine if your game is appropriate or not.
Outlined in our Game Submission Guidelines you’ll find out our requirements for what is & isn’t okay. Seeing this review process is going to be subjective we’re open to having a conversation about why your game may have not been approved; however, at the end of the day, we reserve the right to determine the appropriateness of all games and to accept or reject any game at our discretion.
Once approved you & your team is off! Develop your project with your fans in the passenger seat!