Getting started with GameDistribution

In this guide we’d like to introduce you to GameDistribution (GD) and share how to get your Construct game on GameDistribution. We’ll tell you everything about their general requirements, the SDK, monetizing your game and how to upload your game.

GameDistribution is a big broker of quality, cross platform games. They connect games, including Construct-built games, to publishers to enhance the reach of the games. This can greatly benefit your game if you want to spread and monetize it.

By reading this tutorial we’ll thoroughly explain the requirements GameDistribution holds before they publish a game, what their SDK is and why it’s needed, how to implement this in your Construct game and how to make sure your game is monetized correctly. Finally, we’ll take a look at how to upload/publish your game on GameDistribution and hopefully see your game skyrocket regarding gameplays!

Before your game can be uploaded on GameDistribution, let’s first see what kind of requirements the game needs to meet.

Part 1. General game requirements

GameDistribution is an open platform for developers to upload their games. This does not mean anyone can just ‘drop off’ their games there. There are some requirements to be met:

1. Game must be a complete game (not in-progress). It is allowed to send revisions/updates of games, but a half-built game will not be published on GD.
2. Game may not contain any major bugs. GameDistribution thoroughly QA’s all games before publishing them. They mostly focus on playability, and will send back QA results if major bugs have been found. In this case, they will always explain what needs to be solved.
3. Game must contain a certain level of retention (5 minute gameplay time minimum). GameDistribution connects thousands of games to thousands of publishers with even more platforms. With this they bring a lot of experience in what kind of games the publishers like and are most likely to publish. The most important one is that the game must keep a user ‘occupied’ for roughly 5 minutes. This means happy users (that like the game and keep playing the game/come back for it) and happy publishers (people keep coming back to their portal).
4. Game must contain the GameDistribution SDK. To make sure the game can be embedded smoothly on other websites and the revenue will still go to the ones intended, GameDistribution offers an SDK with monetization solutions. We will look deeper into this in part 2.
5. Game must call for advertisements correctly. This is the #1 money bringer for your game on GameDistribution. We will look deeper into this in part 3.

More details about these rules can be be found in GameDistribution’s developer guidelines.

Part 2. Implementing the SDK

After making sure your game meets the requirements that GameDistribution has, you have to implement the GD SDK. Having the SDK allows you to display advertisements and other solutions available to games published within the GameDistribution network.

• Installation
Make sure you have an account and your game is registered on developer.gamedistribution.com Download the latest version of the plugin from here: sdk.c3addon
• In your Construct3 project, go to Menu > View > Addon manager
• Click Install new addon
• Select and upload the .c3addon file you've just downloaded
• Restart the editor (refresh your browser if you are using the online version)
• Double click your stage and select GameDistribution SDK

• Select the new GameDistribution SDK object in the project folder.

• Copy your Game ID and paste it into the Game ID field in the object properties.

You can find your Game ID within your Gamedistribution control panel after creating a new game.

• Making ads appear

Making ads appear is very easy. Simply use the Show an advertisement action from the GameDistribution SDK object within your event sheet.

Part 3. Adding ads/monetizing your game

Correct ad placement is the key to making money with your game on GameDistribution. More ads = more revenue. The balance between ads and still having happy users without them being overloaded with ads is of course very important and GameDistribution’s SDK helps you a lot with this.

For advertisements, the key is to have pre-roll and mid-roll advertisements:

1. Pre-roll: an ad shown before the user starts playing the game. What you basically want to do is display the pre-roll as fast as possible to the user, so they don’t have the time to change their minds and close the game. Best practice: placing the pre-roll on buttons in the loading/splash screen (Start, Play, Continue).
2. Mid-roll: an ad shown in between game sessions. Ideally placed on all non-gameplay buttons, to spread the chance that users will see ads. Best practice: placing the mid-rolls on each button in the Game Over/Win screen (Replay, Next, Menu).

To get the most out of your game revenue and to maintain a user friendly experience, these requirements are important to keep in mind when deciding on the placement of the ads:

• Ads only display upon user input, e.g. when clicking a button.
• Ads display outside of the gameplay only, to not disrupt the game experience.
• Game audio is muted when the ad is displayed.
• The game pauses when the ad is displayed.

Don’t worry about spamming users with ads by placing ad-calls on too many buttons: GameDistribution regulates the ad-interval through the SDK, so users will only see an ad when the set time-frame has passed.

Other ways to monetize your game are with Rewarded ads and Display ads. These are not mandatory for GameDistribution, so we’ll keep these short:

• Rewarded ads: Users can watch an in-game video and receive rewards (like in-game currency, premium content, extra lives and credits, etc) in return.
• Display ads: Display (banner) ads are a kind of online advertising resource that often shows up at the top or side of a webpage. It is an HTML construct that displays a given advertisement and, when clicked, takes the user to the advertisers site.

4. Upload/publish on GameDistribution

If all of the above is done, all you need to do is activate the SDK integration. To do this, you need to upload your game. For uploading your game to GameDistribution, first you have to make a free developer account. This is easily done via their register page.

As soon as you have registered, the dashboard will appear after each login, and the steps are pretty straightforward here.

Some stuff to keep in mind:

• You'll find your uploaded game URL at the bottom of the upload view within this admin. Here you'll also find a button to open your game within an iframe. Click this button.

• You must completely view your new in-game pre-roll advertisement once, from within this iframe. Doing this will activate and verify the integration.
• Your game will be flagged to have a valid integration of the SDK and your game can be requested for publishing. This will send your game to the GD approval team for review.

After requesting activation you are all ready and set for having your game live on GameDistribution and potentially many other publishing websites!