MarkUp 1/Introduction to Game Publishing

There are many exceptional programs targeted to help exceptional people with great will and wide imagination to make their "dreams" come true. We see lots of games being published every day, but unfortunately, we don't notice the great deal of games that aren't being published, even though they are really great – sometimes even complete – but never have a chance to be distributed!

This article will help those of you who weren't so lucky in terms of finding good hosts for your games and projects.

The Basics
There are many types of sites on the net that would help you publish your game starting from file hosting till other software like installers, etc. Now, I will start explaining all the important terms as if you were an absolute newcomer with very little or no experience regarding the internet, etc., because that was what happened to me when I joined a few years back.

Anyway, let's start explaining the important terms that many beginners wouldn't know:

Uploading
Uploading is the process of creating a copy of a certain file located on your home pc hard disk in any web server on the net. This process is what enables people to access your file/game and download it on their own computers.

Web Hosts
Web Hosts are the companies or sites who are dedicated to have your website stored on web servers (usually their server). Some web hosts provide their services free of charge, while others provide specialist dedicated hosting plans to more professional businesses in return for some amounts of money, usually paid monthly.

Web Space
Web space technically sands for the storage of files on the net, however, many web space provide "private web space" which is only accessible by you, and acts as additional personal space for you to store your personal files on. Using private web space, members cannot see or download your work.

Redirection
Redirection is the process that happens when one page moves you to another page. A very big example for redirection is the Dot.TK service, where you can get a www.something.tk domain and let it point people to your real host (which has a long URL, e.g. www.myhost.com/people/me/). In such services, you cannot upload any of your files, and they provide no sort of web space for you, they only point to another webpage to make the address you use to access the site shorter.

File Hosting
Some people are offering you to only host your files (e.g. games) on their site, but not your whole site (pages, etc.). This could be useful if you either a) don't have a site or b) have limited hosting resources and want to save up your site's resources (space limits, etc.). Whatever is the reason, file hosting is a very good solution.

Image Hosting
Image Hosting has the same concept as File Hosting, except that it only allows you to host image formats, like bitmaps, JPG files, GIF files, PNG files, etc. Since they are more specialized in the image area than file hosting, they are supposed to be better, and often do provide interesting useful services, like adding thumbnails to the images. My favorite Image Hosting site is http://imageshack.us/, but there are many others that are just as good, or better.

Game Publishing
Now that you know the main concepts and their meanings, you should be able to figure out how to host your own game. Game Publishing isn't only uploading, even in the free game sector, you must make sure your game is appealing, and that it attracts people before seeing its actual contents. This could be done by posting artwork and screenshots of the game, writing some good stuff about it, providing good support for it, and anything you can think of to make users want download this game more! There is no right way for game publishing, but I personally prefer doing the following steps to ensure that you have all the important elements of game publishing.

Upload the Game
This doesn't have to be the first step to take, as our entire first few steps are supposed to be done 'at the same time', so the important thing is doing it! For the uploading of the game, I prefer uploading it to a special File Host, and would be even better if you actually upload it to multiple file hosts as "mirror" links.

The reason I say separate File Hosting is better is that even if you do have your own web hosting, unwanted things may happen. Like, for example, many hosts (especially free ones) may go down at unexpected times, leading potential downloader's to loose interest in the game after a while. Having separate file hosts will also save your bandwidth and other server resources.

Upload some screenshots
For the uploading of the screenshots, I prefer doing so to special Image Hosts, such as Image Shack or Photo Bucket. There are specialized image hosts and tend to provide better services in general.

Make a page dedicated for the game in your site
Having your own site is a big benefit, it allows people to get support if they face any troubles running your game, comment on the game, get more information about it, and more. Therefore, IF you have your own site, then it would be extremely useful for you to set up a special page on the site that is especially dedicated to your game, with some text about it, screenshots, and a link to download the game, contact information, or anything you think is essential for downloads to know. And, in order to save both time and server resources, use the same screenshots you uploaded in the previous step, and provide a link to the game you have uploaded in the first step.

Announce it in the forums
Post a topic about your game in the forums where you also describe it, put the screenshots and link to the game in them, and just wait for members to reply. But remember to read the forum rules before you post the topic. That's it! I hope this article was beneficial to you, but still, it's just a guide for beginners to hosting and game publishing.